McLean County Unit District No. 5 Mobile Security and Compliance Solution
When Unit 5 School District in McLean County, Illinois, began providing its middleschool students with laptops, the district soon realized it needed a more robust security program for all school-owned devices, whether used at school or off-site. Specifically, it needed to ensure compliance with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) to provide content filtering for its students. The district turned to Burwood Group for its networking and digital security expertise.
The Challenge: Compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
To comply with CIPA, schools must protect students from “harmful, obscene, and pornographic” content. The task for Burwood Group was to implement content and application filtering controls that could prevent access to inappropriate websites and downloads of potentially harmful applications no matter where the user was located.
“Strengthening mobile security is not an option in today’s schools — but how you achieve those solutions is. Our Burwood Group consultants once again demonstrated that they understand the unique challenges of digital compliance in an educational setting. In addition to their practical recommendations, our Burwood Group team seamlessly deployed our enhanced network security platform.”
The Solution: Project Leadership and Network Security Expertise
Burwood Group recommended that the district simply activate additional features of its existing Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall. The additional features provide a highly secure virtual private network (VPN) for remote students, with application and content filters linked to user credentials.
The Outcome: Seamless Security, Assured CIPA Compliance
Burwood Group secured the district’s 4,000 laptops and network with Palo Alto Network’s easy-to-manage security platform. Now, whenever or wherever district students or teachers access their laptops, they are automatically connected to the district’s virtual private network. School administrators have gained visibility into student Web trends and can more easily determine when to add websites or applications to the filtering list. Unit 5 is now CIPA-compliant both on-campus and off.
Burwood Group Services:
Project Leadership
Palo Alto Networks Security