Protection of Students on BYOD and IoT Devices
BYOD (bring your own device) and IoT (internet of things) devices have spread into all aspects of daily life, from the professional workplace to your local cafe. Of course, K-12 school districts prove no exception.
In schools nationwide, a great many IoT devices are now online, from smart boards in classrooms to trackers on school buses. For their part, students and staff arrive at school with their own devices—notebook computers, tablets, and smartphones—also connected to the network. All these technologies empower greater communication, information gathering and sharing, and learning, but also contribute to an escalating security vulnerability.
The shared connectivity among people, BYOD, and IoT devices makes for a powerful learning environment. In return, however, that same connectivity poses challenges and threats to every school district. Fortunately, Lightspeed Filter delivers both flexibility and control to a district’s IT team to protect students, devices, and the network — all in a single place.
Lightspeed Filter delivers two solutions, Cloud DNS Filter and Lightspeed SmartShield™ technology, to address the specific challenges of BYOD and IoT devices and support flexible deployments for district IT teams. These two reliable solutions can be either deployed individually or leveraged together to provide an added layer of protection.
Use Cloud DNS Filter for Out-of-the-Box CIPA Compliance
Lightspeed Systems’ Cloud DNS Filter works on hostname-level filtering distinguished by the external IP of the device and network. As a result, school districts can create segments with personalized filtering rules and unlock features that operate on the same IP level, all with just a few clicks.
Strengthen Network Protection Without Hardware Constraints
Lightspeed SmartShield serves as a local DNS filter placed on a virtual appliance in a school’s network environment, intercepting and filtering all agent-less internet traffic between devices and networks. SmartShield delivers visibility into internal IP addresses, distinguishing between different devices even when users are not authenticated, thereby allowing greater flexibility and control to manage policies.
Lightspeed SmartShield delivers a number of features to reduce complexity, cut costs, and save time, including:
- Flexible Deployment: Easily establish multiple Lightspeed SmartShield virtual appliances to create custom networks with personalized filtering rules by school, building, and more.
- Cloud Integration: Seamlessly connect with Lightspeed Filter in the cloud, consolidating reporting data and filtering rules for a specific user, for both school-managed and BYOD devices.
- Multi-User Authentication Support, including RADIUS Integration: Instantly identify and filter users beyond internal IP addresses, connecting personal devices to user-specific policies for holistic reporting and efficient policy management.
- Advanced Reporting: Enable detailed reporting and filtering for iOS and other operating systems, including full search and YouTube browsing visibility, as well as support for blocked keyword Search, YouTube SmartPlay, and more with extended proxying functionality.
Summary
To be compliant with federal legislation, school districts must deploy a web content filter solution. However, with digital learning being the norm across all grade levels, districts must ensure all users are protected—in an efficient manner—no matter where they’re learning.
With a robust, accurate solution tailored for K-12 education-specific filtering, districts ensure effectiveness. With an easy, seamless deployment of a web content filter, districts save time for IT and can allocate scarce resources elsewhere. Together, it adds up to a greater return on investment. districts realize a greater return on investment.
Lightspeed Filter offers the most comprehensive solution for web content filtering needs on all connected devices. This saves IT teams both time and money while empowering students to learn safely and securely.
For more information on Lightspeed Filter, please visit us here.
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