Cyber Risk & Security Platform
Education
Protect learning, research, people and the technology your education community depends on.
Education depends on technology every day. Teaching and learning platforms, email, student records, finance, admissions, research, cloud services and administration all need to be available for staff and learners to get on with what matters.
At the same time, education environments can be unusually open and complex. Large numbers of users join and leave, students bring their own devices, researchers collaborate
externally, staff work across locations and institutions depend on many technology and service providers.
ConnectProtect brings cyber risk visibility and managed security together, helping education organisations understand what is exposed, monitor selected third parties, protect endpoints, detect suspicious activity and prioritise vulnerabilities.
Your education environment
is bigger than the campus or school network
Your educational environment can extend across multiple campuses:
- Staff and administrative endpoints
- Teaching and learning devices
- Student information and management systems
- Learning platforms and virtual learning environments
- Email and collaboration services
- Cloud applications and hosted infrastructure
- Websites, portals, domains and internet-facing services
- Remote access and privileged administration
- Research systems and specialist technology
- Tech, software, IT and outsourced service providers
- Software and infrastructure vulnerabilities
Know how you're exposed
The education cyber security challenges we help you address
When education technology is disrupted, the effect can spread quickly. Staff can lose access to teaching resources, students can be unable to submit work, administrative services can stop and important data may become unavailable
Keep teaching, learning and administration moving.
Availability matters throughout the academic year, but particularly around admissions, examinations, assessment deadlines, enrolment and other critical periods. Security monitoring helps identify suspicious activity while vulnerability management helps teams focus on weaknesses that need attention
Protect sensitive student, staff and research information
Education organisations can hold personal, safeguarding, financial, academic and research information. Protecting endpoints and monitoring security activity helps strengthen the security around the people and devices that access it.
Choose the right product
Know what is visible
from the internet
Education estates can accumulate websites, domains, cloud services, research infrastructure, portals and remote-access services. What is visible externally can change as departments, faculties, schools and suppliers introduce new technology.
ConnectProtect® Horizon
Horizon provides Managed External Attack Surface Management (EASM), giving your organisation an outside-in view of what is visible from the internet.
- Identify externally visible assets
- Track changes to the external attack surface
- Surface potential security issues
- Prioritise findings for investigation
- Understand what an external observer can see
Education depends on a growing technology ecosystem
Schools, trusts, colleges and universities can rely on cloud platforms, management information systems, learning technologies, finance systems, specialist software, outsourced IT, research partners and other service providers.
Some suppliers may process sensitive information or have access to systems. Others may provide services that teaching, learning or administration cannot easily operate without. Their cyber posture can therefore become part of your own risk picture.
ConnectProtect® Realm
Realm provides continuous third-party cyber risk monitoring for selected suppliers and thirdparties, helping maintain visibility between formal reviews.
- Monitor selected critical suppliers
- Identify changes in external security posture
- Prioritise third parties that need attention
- Support supplier and procurement conversations
- Add ongoing visibility between periodic assessments
- Focus monitoring on dependencies that matter most
Protect endpoints across a diverse community
Education organisations can have a broad mix of staff, administrators, academics and other users working across offices, classrooms, campuses and remote locations. Managed endpoint security adds an important protection layer around supported business endpoints.
ConnectProtect® Core
Core is a combination of security technology and people watching for threats – without your charity having to build its own security operations centre.
Core is managed endpoint security with:
- Antivirus
- EDR
- anti-ransomware protection
- 24x7x365 human SOC monitoring
Identify vulnerabilities, prioritise them and track progress.
24x7 security monitoring without a 24x7 internal team
Many education IT teams already manage demanding environments with limited time andresources. Security alerts add another workload, and threats do not wait until the IT team is atits desk.
ConnectProtect® Unity
Unity is Managed Detection and Response (MDR) that connects supported security
technologies and adds 24x7x365 managed monitoring, investigation and response.
Where supported, Unity can work with technology already in place rather than forcing unnecessary replacement.
Your people focus on the cause. Security specialists help watch the signals.
Four connected questions for charity cyber security
Good cyber security does not have to mean dozens of disconnected tools. ConnectProtect
brings five complementary capabilities together around questions trustees, leaders and IT
teams should be able to answer.
-
ConnectProtect® Horizon
What can an attacker see?
Understand your external attack surface.
-
ConnectProtect® Realm
Which suppliers could introduce risk?
Monitor selected third parties.
-
ConnectProtect® Core
Are your endpoints protected and watched?
Add managed endpoint protection and 24x7x365 human monitoring.
-
ConnectProtect® Unity
Would we detect suspicious security activity?
Connect supported security technologies and add managed detection and response
Made for any size
Different education environments. Shared security challenges.
Schools and academy trusts
Schools need technology to support learning, administration, safeguarding processes and communication with families. Smaller IT teams may be responsible for large numbers of users and devices while also managing suppliers and day-to-day support. ConnectProtect can add managed security capability around that environment without requiring a school or trust to build its own security operations centre.
Colleges and further education
Colleges can combine open learning environments, diverse users, specialist curriculum technology and substantial administrative systems. Security needs to support that accessibility while protecting the systems and information the institution depends on.
Universities and higher education
Universities can have especially complex and decentralised estates, with faculties, research groups, international collaboration, large user populations and valuable research and intellectual property. NCSC guidance notes that the open, collaborative nature of teaching and research brings cyber risk and that universities and their data are valuable targets.
Protect research as well as operations
For research-intensive institutions, cyber security also helps protect valuable projects, intellectual property and sensitive collaboration. ConnectProtect’s external visibility, endpoint protection, monitoring, supplier-risk and vulnerability management capabilities can form part of a wider security architecture around research and academic environments.
Supporting education cyber resilience
The Department for Education’s current Digital and Technology Standards set cyber security as one of six core standards that schools and colleges should work towards meeting by 2030. The cyber security standard covers areas including risk assessment, anti-malware and firewalls, account and access security, keeping technology up to date, backups and reporting
cyber attacks.
The DfE also states that schools and colleges have statutory responsibilities to keep children and young people safe online and that appropriate cyber security measures and procedures form part of safeguarding systems, staff and pupils. NCSC guidance provides dedicated cyber security resources for schools, colleges and universities and recommends that education organisations review cyber risk and improve resilience.
ConnectProtect does not replace DfE standards, safeguarding responsibilities, Cyber Essentials, NCSC guidance, governance or an institution’s own assurance obligations. Its services can support practical security capabilities around visibility, endpoint protection, monitoring, third-party risk and vulnerability management.
Know what your industry needs.
Pick the right product for your business. With the help of ConnectProtect, we can make cyber security simple and protect you from the threats of today and tomrrow.
