Moving education onto the Internet offers students exciting new educational and creative opportunities. Networked education also promises benefits to teachers and school administrator such as flexible delivery of educational materials and programs as well as cost savings. Yet, the Internet also puts students—whether at public school districts, community colleges, or major universities—at risk for illegal sharing of copyrighted information and for access to inappropriate materials. Without careful management, students and staff can also waste valuable network resources and endanger network operations with pursuits that don't relate to institutional goals.

Network Security Issues in Education:

• Preventing unauthorized exposure of academic records, exam data, and personnel files.
• Guarding against harm and liability from student and staff access to inappropriate content
• Avoiding legal jeopardy on campus networks from illegal content sharing
• Preventing viruses, worms, and spyware from infecting student’s computers and network assets
• Protecting the performance of core academic applications from users who waste bandwidth via games, streaming media, and other applications

Celestix appliance solutions:

• MSA™ - firewall/proxy appliances that shield private-network records and data from unauthorized exposure
• WSX™ and MSA with Websense - web filtering, on standalone WSX™ appliances or as an option on MSA appliances, stops student and staff access to inappropriate content
• Kaspersky anti virus software is an option on MSA appliances that protects against spyware, viruses, worms, and other content-base threats
• WSA™ appliances deliver secure connectivity via the Internet between schools and district offices, among distributed campus locations, and for authorized users at remote locations via SSL VPN technology
• Manage Quality of Service and bandwidth through FairShare software included on every MSA appliance as well as Celestix Load Balancer appliances
• Minimize cost of ownership with Celestix appliances’ low acquisition costs as well as easy deployment and management that keep IT staffing costs low.

Educational institutions that deployed Celestix network security products: