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St. Coleman Catholic School Gives eSoft High Marks for Protecting Its Network from Malware and Students from Inappropriate Websites

School Network is Safe from Intruders, Spam, Spyware, Viruses, Worms and Other Malicious Threats

The Organization:

St. Coleman Catholic School

The Challenge:

St. Coleman Catholic School needed an Internet security solution to protect its students from inappropriate content and its network from malicious threats. It needed a multi-pronged approach to network security to keep malware off and to keep students focused on educational activities.

The eSoft Solution:

eSoft provided the school with its award-winning InstaGate and ThreatWall security gateways. Today, the school’s eSoft InstaGate Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliance has the Email ThreatPak while the ThreatWall content security gateway has the Web ThreatPak onboard.

The Benefits:

eSoft’s web filtering, included in the Web ThreatPak, allows administrators to preserve a safe school environment by blocking access to websites with pornography, nudity, and other mature content.
eSoft’s Email ThreatPak handles all of the school’s needs for email security, content filtering, spam mitigation, phishing email blocking, and email-borne virus protection. The school is protected against both external and internal email-borne threats.
eSoft’s Web ThreatPak protects the school’s network against spyware, phishing, browser exploits, viruses, and other malicious Internet content.
eSoft’s Intrusion Prevention capabilities on the Web ThreatPak keep the network and confidential student and teacher information safe from hackers and botnets.
eSoft’s Distributed Intelligence Architecture™ (DIA) quickly identifies new threats and provides rapid, proactive protection against new malware, malicious websites, phishing attacks, and botnet threats.

“I feel very fortunate because we’ve never had a virus on campus in the 10 or 11 years we’ve been with eSoft. We’ve never been hacked to my knowledge, either.”

Frank Wannop
Information Systems Technician and Consultant
St. Coleman Catholic School

eSoft Security Covers St. Coleman Catholic School’s Network

eSoft’s firewall, which comes free as part of the InstaGate, includes Quality of Service (QoS) bandwidth management, full reporting, and sophisticated firewall rules. In addition, the firewall comes standard with eSoft’s Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology that scans packet data as well as headers to stop threats that most firewalls never see.
eSoft’s Web ThreatPak filters anti-spyware , phishing , browser exploits, viruses, and other malicious Internet content while allowing St. Coleman Catholic School to set and enforce Internet usage policies.
The large URL database of spyware, phishing and other sites is updated instantly with newly categorized websites through eSoft’s Distributed Information Architecture™ and patented SoftPak Director™ threat response technologies. Additionally, the school can add its own custom URLs to the database. The Web ThreatPak is a crucial tool that gives the school more control of Internet usage.
Web ThreatPak’s gateway anti-virus features scan all web pages and web/ftp downloads in-depth for viruses, Trojans , Worm , and other malware.
eSoft’s Intrusion Prevention System comes standard with all eSoft ThreatPaks and keeps hackers outside of the network, while alerting administrators to evidence of breaches such as Trojan or bot-infected computers inside the network.

“After we got the eSoft product in for trial, we never sent it back—we kept it from that day and we’ve had it ever since, it worked so well and it was so easy to use.”

Protecting Students is the Top Priority

St. Coleman Catholic School opened in 1958 as Our Lady of the Assumption with eight classrooms. Today, the school has eight educational buildings and one building for administrative offices and residential units for parish priests. More than 50 teachers, administrators and staff members serve more than 650 students in grades Pre-K through 8.

In 1997, while the school had some loosely networked computers and peripherals on campus, only a few workstations had Internet access. Frank Wannop was a parishioner with the affiliated St. Coleman Church at the time and the pastor looked to him for guidance with the network, and specifically direction on network security because the school was beginning to look at extending its Internet connectivity.

“The main concern back in 1997 was the concern for students and keeping them from inappropriate materials on the Internet,” said Wannop, who is now the school’s Information Systems Technician and Consultant. “We built a lab for the students but we wanted to protect them from what’s out there on the Internet. We needed a web filter, first and foremost. At the same time, we wanted protection from malicious traffic that could enter our new network via email and websites.”

Wannop started looking at leading network security solutions and honed in on an appliance from eSoft, bringing in a trial product for 30 days. “After we got the eSoft product in for trial, we never sent it back—we kept it from that day and we’ve had it ever since, it worked so well and it was so easy to use,” said Wannop. While the school has upgraded over time and has now consolidated features into Web and Email ThreatPaks on the InstaGate and ThreatWall products, its satisfaction has only deepened over time.

A+ Network Security

St. Coleman Catholic School has deployed the eSoft InstaGate as its firewall with Email ThreatPak capabilities, and its ThreatWall Security Gateways with Web ThreatPak capabilities. The InstaGate, which utilizes a high-performance Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) Firewall and IPSec VPN architecture, offers protection from dynamic, content-based threats that elude traditional firewalls. The ThreatWall appliance has been purpose-built to withstand the rigors of application-level security, making deployment of critical security functions such as anti-virus, anti-phishing, intrusion prevention, and web content filtering almost effortless while retaining maximum effectiveness. eSoft’s SoftPak Director™ subscription management provides the school with unmatched flexibility and responsiveness with the ability to add new security applications, as well as instantly and easily receive ongoing updates and malware signatures.

Setting Internet Usage Policies

eSoft’s web filtering provides Wannop with the control he needs to enforce what sites students can access. Wannop blocks sites known to host malware and phishing scams, pornography and more. St. Coleman also blocks Social Networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to keep students on task.

eSoft’s solution can also be integrated with the school’s Active Directory server, which would transparently authenticate and assign users appropriate web access permissions based on their group so that teachers would be less restricted than students. Detailed reporting would then allow a convenient way to summarize and report on actual usage on a per-user basis so that Wannop or a colleague could see how much time students are spending on different websites and in different website categories such as Games.

Simplified Management Saves Time for Busy Staff

eSoft’s products, all of which have been designed for ease of use and time-saving features and functionality, significantly lessen the burden for Wannop, who shoulders many responsibilities. The InstaGate and ThreatWall gateways are easy to configure and change, and by integrating all of the school’s network security tools into a single management console, he can manage the entire security solution and keep a handle on all activity, both inside and outside the network.

“For me, the eSoft solution’s been so easy to use and technical support has been great,” said Wannop. “I never need more than five or ten minutes with an eSoft specialist, if I even get to that point.”

Always Up-to-Date and Proactive

eSoft’s Distributed Intelligence Architecture™ (DIA) leverages eSoft’s patented SoftPak Director™ (SPD) security infrastructure to create a dynamic, zero-hour threat detection and prevention loop. By harnessing the power of eSoft’s installed customer base on an opt-in basis to create a collaborative, global threat prevention network, St. Coleman Catholic School has the power, tools and scale to combat the increasingly sophisticated and coordinated attacks on its network. eSoft security appliances self-update all of their signatures constantly through the day and night. Customized reports and mapping features summarize threat activity and provide warning flags, as well as protection suggestions particular to each appliance and network.

The network at St. Coleman Catholic School is fully secure with the current eSoft solution. “I feel very fortunate because we’ve never had a virus on campus in the 10 or 11 years we’ve been with eSoft,” said Wannop. “We’ve never been hacked to my knowledge, either. Some neighboring schools have had issues and we just never have. We’re more than happy with eSoft.”

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