Wellington College upgrades the security of its campus network with ForeScout CounterACT Virtual Appliance

(28/09/2011)

Wellington College is a beautifully designed school set in 400 acres of land in Berkshire, United Kingdom. Opened by Queen Victoria in 1859, the school was originally set up as a charitable educational institution for the orphans of army officers. Today, Wellington College teaches over 1000 students - boys and girls - from age 13 upwards, and has become one of the best boarding schools in the country.

In 2010, Wellington College’s director of IT services and development, Tony Whelton, decided it was time to upgrade the security of the campus network to protect against an ever-increasing amount of malware, worms and zero-day threats lurking in the wild. Specifically, Tony wanted to prevent virus outbreaks coming from any source - students, staff, or guests. In addition, Tony needed a solution that would work with his existing network infrastructure; one that would be easy to set up and maintain.

“With an educational establishment like ours, most of the threats are within as pupils try and bypass the security systems we have in place. In addition, many pupils have up to three devices each, be it a smartphone, tablet or laptop, so we really have to be ahead of the game to keep security threats at bay. Having deployed ForeScout CounterACT, I believe we have the best available NAC solution to protect our network, and the new virtual appliance allows us to scale up quickly for guest access, such as open days for prospective parents.” said Tony Whelton, director of IT services and development at Wellington College

The Network Access Control (NAC) solution originally installed by Wellington College didn’t facilitate real-time scanning, so device posture-checking was scheduled every two weeks; a process which took 3-4 minutes and was not popular among pupils as their endpoints were locked during this time. This disruption to pupils, plus the risk of zero-day threats attacking at any time, prompted the College decided to look for an alternative NAC solution – and quickly, as the volume of security threats kept on growing.

ForeScout CounterACT proved to be the best alternative. According to Tony Whelton: "ForeScout CounterACT provided us with the real-time visibility we were looking for, allowing us to see where the threats were, and then put a wall-garden around them. CounterACT also enables us to create security policy, quickly and easily, with different policies in place depending on students' age, subjects, etc."

"If you think about it, the very first 'Bring Your Own Device' policies, challenges and risks were confronted by IT teams within educational establishments," said Scott Gordon, vice president at ForeScout Technologies. "The progressive security programs, such as those managed by Wellington College for their pupils, staff and guests, demonstrates how network access control and endpoint security solutions, such as ForeScout CounterACT, can be an enabler for greater network accessibility, as well as an effective means for policy enforcement."

Why ForeScout virtual appliance?

• In spring 2011, Wellington College became one of the first UK organisations to deploy the ForeScout CounterACT virtual appliance. Due to the explosion of smartphones, tablets and other devices – with many pupils having three devices each – the College was monitoring up to 4000 devices at any one time, and had simply outgrown the existing CT-1000 physical appliance.
• The virtual appliance allows Wellington College to scale up quickly, as and when required, which is important because the school hosts many events – such as open days for prospective parents – at which point an additional 2000 guest devices may access the network.
• ForeScout CounterACT virtual appliance was installed at Wellington College in less than 30 minutes, providing instant visibility of all endpoints.

How ForeScout Helped

Threat prevention:
o ForeScout CounterACT’s patented built-in threat prevention mechanism, ActiveResponse™, prevents the spread of new and propagating malware on the network, as well as detecting rogue network devices. Whelton commented, “Since deploying ForeScout CounterACT I can sleep easy knowing that our network is protected against viruses, worms and other zero-day threats.”

Time and cost savings:
o “The automatic remediation capability of ForeScout CounterACT, coupled with the fact that we can install and configure it ourselves, has saved approximately 10 days work in the past year, which equates to a saving of around £25,000.”

Improved network performance:
o “Before CounterACT, we suffered latency issues due to rogue traffic on the network, and had users complaining about delayed access to the network. When we were using our former NAC product, the pupil experience was affected as their devices were locked for 3-4 minutes during the slow posture-checking process. With ForeScout CounterACT, the checks are in real-time, so pupils have no interruption to the service we provide.”

Scalable student & guest networking:
o ForeScout’s automated network controls and guest networking capabilities with built-in policy templates allows administrators to quickly implement and enforce security controls. “With the virtual appliance, we can address the growing demand for network resource access and handle spikes due to an increased number of guests during school events.”

The ForeScout Difference

According to Tony Whelton, “Because of ForeScout CounterACT we now have a clean and efficient network. Their virtual appliance has been a fantastic solution to the extra security challenges posed by an influx of smartphones, tablets and wireless routers over recent months, and it also allows us to scale up quickly, which is imperative as more and more devices join our network – via pupils, staff and guests. In addition to the extensive visibility and threat prevention that CounterACT provides, we have also benefited from significant time and cost savings due to the appliance’s wide-ranging automated security control features.”

Related topics:  Hacking and intrusion prevention   Internet and Web security   Network Security   Virus, Worm, Email security, spyware and malware 

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