The changes to school operations as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are enormous and unprecedented. With huge numbers of people now working and learning from home, the load on the UK’s networks is increasing. For example, BT saw an increase in daytime traffic of up to 60% from 16 to 20 March, but the network has sufficient ‘headroom’ to cope with this.
There are, however, a lot more devices than usual connecting to school, work and cloud systems, and it’s likely that many of them don’t have adequate security software in place.
One of our key partners, Trend Micro, have also recognised this.
We’re both passionate about the safe use and exchange of digital information, and Trend Micro are offering free access for six months to Trend Micro Maximum Security, their consumer internet security product, to support home working and home learning.
Trend Micro are offering this to organisations to support their employees working from home. We have confirmed with Trend Micro that schools can use this product for staff and for students and parents using their own devices. You can learn more and register for this here:
If you have any questions about this, please get in touch with us at infosec@swgfl.org.uk.
We’ve also produced some guidance for schools about securing remote access, including some checks and technical measures to look at to help ensure that remote access to school networks using Microsoft RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) is secured. Your technical support team should be able to assist with this, but if you have any questions just drop us a line at infosec@swgfl.org.uk.
