NEOTD Tech and Toast 2017 Recap
Yesterday, June 7th, was the NEOTD Tech and Toast event. It was held at the Hotel at Oberlin in Oberlin, Ohio, and focused on educating local representatives from K-12 schools on the dangers with network security in schools. Three presenters gave their own takes on how schools and individuals can be harmed on their devices, and gave solutions for preventing attacks.
Along with presentations, a complimentary breakfast was given to guests. The guests were a collection of representatives from schools around Northeast Ohio.
SonicWall
The first presenter of the morning was Nyall Sheldon of SonicWall, an internet security company. He discussed the importance of Deep Packet Inspection over SSL. He discussed that even HTTPS websites, which should be secure, can be hosting malware. Not scanning HTTPS websites could put your computer at risk for a malware attack.
His solution was SonicWall’s own DPI-SSL, which helps inspect all SSL traffic by flowing through SonicWall. This helps users block unwanted websites and be alerted when something could be malicious. SonicWall also offers hardware to create a firewall right for the size of your school.
Kaspersky
Next up was Zach Ehrhardt from Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity and anti-virus provider. Kaspersky focused on Security in Virtualization. He explained that what you typically will see for security on a Virtual machine is agent-based security. This can be a redundant process and can reduce the effectiveness of the machine more quickly than other methods.
His solution is Light Agent Security or Agentless Security. Light Agent security keeps consolidation ratios high as well as eliminating the problems of agent-based security. It’s also available for most of the large servers. Agentless eliminates redundant security checks and it’s easy to use and deploy. His suggestion is to know what your system is looking for and choose accordingly from there.
Keynote – Dan Faltisco
Our Keynote speaker for the event, Dan Faltisco, is a Cybersecurity veteran. He spoke about Cybersecurity in Education, mainly ransomware and other breaches. He discussed that along with attacks outside of the school, student to student attacks are becoming more common, as well as the always prevelant “user error.” He discussed that K-12 can be quite vulnerable to cyber attacks, and it is always important to be vigilant.
His discussion then shifted to WannaCry, the ransomware virus that’s affected hundreds of countries around the world. He even brought it back home by discussing school-based hacker attacks in the U.S. and Ohio. Another issue he brought up is BYOD policies. It’s always good to have a policy in place for students and faculty bringing their own devices into schools. He gave solutions for protecting your data, including network defenses and always making sure you have backups readily available.
Knowledge is Power
Presenters were all met with applause, and stayed around for almost an hour after the presentations were done to talk to school representatives. Overall, this year’s Tech and Toast event was a success for presenters and representatives alike.