Building a District-wide Cybersecurity Culture: Grapevine-Colleyville ISD’s “Beat the Filter” Challenge

Cybersecurity is a community effort at Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD). Through comprehensive district-wide training programs and the implementation of proven solutions, like Lightspeed Filter and Lightspeed Digital Insight, GCSID safeguards their networks and maintains the highest standards of privacy and compliance for their district. In addition to educating their staff about the potential dangers of phishing and other malicious threats to their network, they also empower students through white hat hackers’ clubs. These clubs encourage students to not only understand the importance of cybersecurity and digital citizenship but also to actively apply these principles in their actions.

“We’re constantly checking against new trends to refresh our training, and we even go out into our community to talk to our parents about cybersecurity overall. Because it’s really about all of us,” explains Kyle Berger, Chief Technology Officer at GCISD.

As part of these cybersecurity efforts, Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD) partnered with Lightspeed Systems to host a “Beat the Filter” student hackathon in late May 2024. During the two-day event, a group of approximately 20 students from grades 6-12 attempted to bypass the district’s content filtering solution, Lightspeed Filter. Led by Berger and cheered on by both GCISD’s tech team and Lightspeed engineers, students looked for innovative ways to circumvent the filter to access gaming and other unapproved sites.

“For us, it’s a way that we can build our relationship with our kids because ultimately that’s what we’re here for—to build a better educational environment for them,” states Berger.

Students had the opportunity to showcase their skills on stage, and prizes were awarded to those with the most innovative techniques. GCISD and Lightspeed will use these findings to inform best practices and future product updates.

Watch this video to learn more about the event and GCISD’s cybersecurity initiatives.

While a fun way to engage with students, events like these highlight the very real challenge school districts face as students become increasingly proficient at circumventing security measures to access restricted content. To address this issue, Lightspeed Systems recently introduced The Bypass Prevention Initiative, a comprehensive set of enhancements to the Lightspeed Filter aimed at combating this problem from various angles.

Additionally, following the success of GCISD’s “Beat the Filter” challenge, Lightspeed plans to partner with more districts to host similar events in the future.