How to Keep Students Safe Online

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How to Keep Students Safe Online

So much lurks in cyberspace that can harm kids. Here’s how to keep your students safe online.

Thanks to CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act), schools that request E-Rate funding are required to put Internet filters and other safety features in place to shield students from pornography and other inappropriate images. But keeping students safe online isn’t that easy.

Blocking websites, monitoring email, limiting Internet usage, and monitoring kids’ cyber activity is just the beginning. To steer clear of dangers like cyberstalking, ...

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Student Safety

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Benefits of an Automated School Help Desk

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Benefits of an Automated School Help Desk

If you’re still running your school help desk the old-fashioned way, it’s time to automate.

So you are the school help desk. Do you find yourself:

  • Digging through a messy pile of trouble tickets?
  • Frantically searching emails for work requests?
  • Spending hours on the phone assigning tasks and chasing down your repair team?
  • Getting bombarded by staff requests every time you hit the vending machine?
  • Logging issues manually on a spreadsheet?
  • Losing work orders?
  • Suffering from headaches, hair pulling, and random outbursts?

You’re not alone. Many schools—particularly ...

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Customer Service, Tools & Resources

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Is Wi-Fi Safe? Are Children at Risk? The Debate Rages On.

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Is Wi-Fi Safe? Are Children at Risk? The Debate Rages On.

“Wi-Fi is safe.” “Wi-Fi is dangerous.” Hear both sides of the debate and decide where you fall.

Our homes, businesses, schools, coffee shops, and even airplanes are all going wireless, allowing us to be connected 24/7. It’s incredibly convenient—and most of us can’t imagine life without Wi-Fi.

But is Wi-Fi safe?

There’s a lot of controversy about the potential health risks of the wireless radiation emitted by Wi-Fi, cellphones, and other devices—especially in children. Some say living in a “virtual sea ...

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Student Safety, Technology Issues

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“Unlock” & Content-Filter HTTPS Traffic With SSL Intercept

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“Unlock” & Content-Filter HTTPS Traffic With SSL Intercept

The world is going HTTPS. Is your school prepared?

The recent and rapid adoption of HTTPS (hyper text transfer protocol secure) has made Internet use safer. By encrypting data over a secure socket layer (SSL), the communication between a client (e.g., a browser) and the server can’t be intercepted—which protects against eavesdropping, tampering, and man-in-the-middle attacks.

HTTPS was once relegated to banks, online shops, and sites that request financial and other sensitive information. But thanks to the NSA’s ...

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Technology Issues

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Lousy Wi-Fi Performance? How to Remedy This Annoying Problem.

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Lousy Wi-Fi Performance? How to Remedy This Annoying Problem.

Slow Wi-Fi is exasperating. Here’s what’s slowing you down to snail’s pace—and what you can do about it.

With nearly 90 percent of K–12 schools allowing students and staff to use personal devices on their networks, BYOD offers tremendous learning and cost-saving opportunities.

But it also means a lot of people are vying to get—and stay—connected to your Wi-Fi network. And that may be an exercise in frustration.

Here are six possible culprits for slow Wi-Fi and what you can do ...

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Technology Issues

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Hacked Website: Myth Versus Reality

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Hacked Website: Myth Versus Reality

Yes, a hacked website can happen to your school. Here, the myths, misinformation, and truths. Plus, tips for protecting yourself.

If you surfed the Internet in 1994, you could probably have gone to all 3,000 websites. (And back then, a hacked website was rare.) Today, you’d be hard pressed to visit even a tiny fraction of the billion-plus sites out there.

Exponential growth has come at a price: About one percent—or ten million—of these websites are hacked or infected.

While your ...

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Security

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The Emotional and Legal Consequences of Sexting

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The Emotional and Legal Consequences of Sexting

Sexting can have severe repercussions for K-12 students. Embarrassment is just the beginning.

A well-known politician posts a photo of his private parts on Twitter. The image gets leaked, he suffers humiliation, and the Congressman ultimately resigns in disgrace. Now there’s an entire Wikipedia article devoted to the incident. “Sexting for adults” one thing.

But when an underage kid sends and/or receives a sexually explicit photo, the consequences could be far worse than just being embarrassed or publicly shamed.

Depending on the jurisdiction, he ...

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Student Safety

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Dirty, Rotten Phish

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Dirty, Rotten Phish

Email phishing scams are flooding the Internet: How not to get lured in.

Nearly 85 percent of American and British organizations have been victims of phishing attacks, most delivered by email (other popular vehicles include mobile devices, social media, and phone calls).

Financial loss, productivity slowdown, and reputation damage are just some of the consequences companies like Seagate, Snapchat, and (ironically) the web-security company KnowBe4 have suffered after a strike.

Schools are juicy prey, too. And all it takes is one—just ...

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Security

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Ransomware: It Can Happen to You

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Ransomware: It Can Happen to You

An old cybercrime that first surfaced in the late ‘80s, ransomware has re-emerged as a sinister plague.

It can infect school networks—and pretty much everyone else on the planet who has access to a computer and the Internet.

According to the FBI, ransomware victims in the U.S. doled out $209 million in first quarter 2016, compared to $24 million for all of 2015.

Ransomware sites are propagating like mad, reports Infoblox,with a 3,500 percent increase in first quarter 2016 over ...

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Security

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Social-Engineering Attacks. You’re More Vulnerable Than You Think.

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Social-Engineering Attacks. You’re More Vulnerable Than You Think.

Are your endusers vulnerable to social engineering? The scammers are counting on it.

You’ve gone to great lengths to protect your school network with firewalls, filters, and anti-virus software. But you’ve still got a weak link (or hundreds). It’s called your end-user. Any one of staff members or students could fall for a social-engineering scam that devastates your entire system.

Hackers are increasingly clever and sophisticated as they “socially engineer” their victims into taking some sort of ...

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Security

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