![]() “All of those other pieces ultimately come together to craft a more holistic solution for our districts,” he says. This layered defense helps reduce the siloed solutions that districts might implement on their own, says Branum. “That was layer zero, and now we’re building on top of that.”ĭIG DEEPER: Learn more about Backup as a Service and why schools should consider it. “We built a lot of resilience to help districts should a ransomware attack happen,” says Mendez. That network is the backbone for other Region 10 services that districts can use, including Firewall as a Service and Backup as a Service. “So now you have enterprise-grade DDoS protection, whether your district has 800 students or 60,000 students, at an affordable cost.” “It has a 200-gigabit connection that can scale up to a terabit, and it’s all protected,” he says. When districts reported that distributed denial of service attacks were a problem, the ESC came up with a solution: a massive network that connects more than 70 districts across 110 circuits, says Information Security Manager David Mendez. Region 10 also helps member districts strengthen their security in other ways. “A group of districts may also be able to share a few security people or a virtual CISO.” North Texas Schools Build In Resilience to Protect Against Ransomware “When you pool resources, you can make sure that a group of districts are all using a supported, unified set of tools,” McLaughlin says. Sharing resources is a great strategy for both consistency and cost savings, says Amy McLaughlin, cybersecurity project director for CoSN. “That shows the power of what a service center consortium effort can do.” “It gives them the industry-leading endpoint protection solution, regardless of their size,” says Branum. When district leaders reported that endpoint security was a major concern, Region 10 worked with CDW to deploy CrowdStrike to the districts that wanted it. RELATED: Get answers to commonly asked E-rate questions here.Įndpoint protection is a case in point. By negotiating on behalf of multiple districts, Region 10 can secure enterprise-quality solutions at a fraction of the price that districts would pay on their own. That’s where Region 10 comes in, extending local resources with the buying power of high-volume purchases. Larger districts are starting to fund such positions, Branum says, but cybersecurity remains a tall order for one person to manage. ![]() Region 10 districts typically have a technology professional on staff, but that person may fill dual roles, and most schools lack a dedicated IT security professional. Region 10 serves more than 847,000 students across 120 entities in North Texas, about half of which are considered “small,” says CTO Chad Branum. Located just outside Dallas, the Region 10 Education Service Center is one of 20 ESCs in Texas, which provide a wide variety of services to districts throughout the state. K–12 Schools Band Together to Boost Buying Power Bulk purchases, virtual CISOs and in-house skill development help IT leaders raise their defenses without breaking the bank.Ĭlick the banner to learn the latest security trends in K-12 by becoming an Insider. Meanwhile, a growing number of districts are creatively stretching their cybersecurity dollars. “Bolstering K–12 cybersecurity will require multiple strategies at the local, state, regional and national levels, but E-rate can play a key part in addressing the problem at scale,” he says. In December 2022, the FCC invited public comment on E-rate coverage for advanced firewalls, citing CoSN’s petition as one of the reasons, says Reg Leichty, founding partner of education law firm Foresight Law + Policy. To help, the Consortium for School Networking submitted a petition to the Federal Communications Commission in 2021 asking it to expand E-rate funding to cover cybersecurity solutions. As if the worsening threat landscape weren’t bad enough, K–12 districts also face higher costs related to cybersecurity with the continued rise of ransomware demands, the financial impact of breaches and cyber insurance premiums.
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