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The Consortium for School Networking Launches ‘Cyber Security for the Digital District’ Initiative New resources to provide schools and districts with vital information on education networks in order to ensure the privacy and security of data National School Board Association's T+L2 Conference, Anaheim, CA. (Oct. 23, 2003) – The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), a national nonprofit organization that promotes the use of information technologies and the Internet in K-12 education, today launched its newest leadership initiative, Cyber Security for the Digital District, designed to provide education technology leaders and policy-makers with strategies and tools they can use to ensure the privacy of data and the safe operation of technology within their school systems. "The purpose of schools is student learning, but that can't happen unless a district's information systems are operational, safe, and adding value to the learning process," said Keith Krueger, CoSN’s Executive Director. The Project Director for Cyber Security for the Digital District is Steven E. Miller, who is also the executive director of Mass Networks Education Partnership (MNEP), a New England-based non-profit that is partnering with CoSN on this initiative. "CoSN's vendor-neutral approach will give the education community unbiased information and methods for effective action around technology, policy, and the people issues that are the ultimate bedrock of security," Miller said. CoSN launched this multi-year initiative at the National School Board Association’s “T+L2: Leading Learning to a Higher Level” conference. The press conference followed the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Leadership Forum, “Cyber Security of K-12 Networks,” at which education technology leaders outlined their needs for assistance in this area. Cyber Security for the Digital District is made possible through the generous support of education grants from: Founding Platinum Sponsors Further support comes from the U.S. Department of Education (www.ed.gov) as Founding Government Sponsor in collaboration with the Northwest Regional Education Lab (www.nwrel.org). Further information about the Cyber Security for the Digital District initiative will soon be available at the project’s website, http://www.securedistrict.org. Excerpts from a background paper prepared by the CoSN initiative were also released. The full paper, “Cyber Security: Helping Schools Protect Their Technology Assets and Fulfill Their Educational Mission,” written by Miller, is available on the project’s website and will be included in the “CoSN Compendium 2004” to be released during CoSN’s annual national conference in March 2004. "President Bush has made it a priority to provide safe schools for our nation's children. In our digital world we must also secure our school networks to keep children safe, information secure, and protect our network education resources,” said John P. Bailey, director of Educational Technology for the U. S. Department of Education. “Working with state and local governments, school districts and the private sector, together we can identify specific ways to improve network security from administration down to the classroom." The cyber security background paper notes that in the early years of educational technology, many school computer systems grew without much long-term or systemic planning. Only recently have districts begun to place high priority on building technology systems comprised of equipment that can be centrally managed by a single full-featured set of tools. "Symantec is pleased to be a founding member of the Consortium for School Networking’s Cyber Security for the Digital District initiative,” said Tom Mazich, vice president, public sector, Symantec. “This comprehensive effort raises awareness of technologies and strategies school authorities are using to maintain trusted IT environments and prevent their computer assets from being co-opted or compromised by today’s increasingly sophisticated online threats." Schools exist to facilitate student learning, the paper notes. This is their primary purpose. Security is a necessary precondition, but not an end in itself. Therefore, it is vital that security policies and strategies be designed in ways that don’t significantly undermine the learning process. "Schools are here to give students an education. They should be able to accomplish that in a safe and productive environment,” said Mary Cardwell, director of marketing for SurfControl. "Each institution is unique and schools need to develop policies that embrace their uniqueness while protecting their students, their personal information and the institution and staff. This has always been SurfControl's position and we are pleased to be affiliated with this newest CoSN initiative that adopts that same philosophy." The paper notes that a sound security program must include repeated training and frequent discussions, not only about the policies and procedures that people need to obey but the reasons that those rules were created in the first place. People are the bottom line. The people creating the security policy have to believe deeply that students and staff are not just part of the problem, they’re also key to the solution. “There is a natural tension between security and an open learning environment,” said Douglas Brockett, vice president of worldwide marketing for SonicWALL, Inc. “Balancing these goals is at the heart of the cyber security challenge facing schools today. Ultimately, the people – staff, faculty and students – affected by security policies and technologies must come together and agree on this balance. SonicWALL seeks to make security policies and technologies easier to understand and use, enabling all people involved in this process to become an active part of the solution.” Art Pasquinelli, director, Global Education & Research for Sun Microsystems, said: "Sun and CoSN share a common belief that cyber security is a critical issue today for educators and will continue to become increasingly important in the coming years. The joint efforts of CoSN, Sun, and numerous filtering and security software vendors focused on the Cyber Security initiative will help address architectural security to ensure that directory and directory services are an integral consideration as schools look at requirements to build secure environments.” Microsoft Executive Director K12 Education, Tim Magner, said: "We recognize that Microsoft can play a key role in improving computer security and are pleased to support COSN's Cyber Security for the Digital District initiative. Working together, educators, technology providers and the community need to enable school districts with the information, methods and resources they need to maintain a secure technology environment. This initiative is poised to play a substantive role in facilitating that vital communication." Dan Kinnaman, publisher of District Administration magazine, the media sponsor for the program, said: “Everyone is for cyber security, but many school district leaders don’t know where to begin, or how to stay ahead of the next threat. Cyber Security for the Digital District will help on both counts. Safety and security are top priorities for district leaders, and District Administration looks forward to helping to get the word out about this important initiative.” For More Information Contact Beth Cherry Adibi, Director of Marketing About the Cyber Security for the Digital District Initiative CoSN’s Cyber Security for the Digital District initiative will be a highly respected source of up-to-date, unbiased information for educators. In addition to the “Cyber Security: Helping Schools Protect Their Technology Assets and Fulfill Their Educational Mission” background paper to frame the issues for educators, future initiative deliverables include:
About the Consortium for School Networking Founded in 1992, CoSN is the preeminent national voice on the use of the Internet and information technologies to improve K-12 learning. It played a leading role in creation of the E-rate and other key national education technology initiatives over the past decade. It is a “CIO-type” organization for education technology leaders from the school district, state and national level. In addition to the Cyber Security for the Digital District, current CoSN leadership initiatives include Data-driven Decision Making, www.3d2know.org; Safeguarding the Wired Schoolhouse, www.safewiredschools.org; Taking Total Cost of Ownership to the Classroom, www.classroomtco.org, and; the development of the Council of School District Chief Technology Officers (CTO). CoSN sponsors an annual conference at which school technology leaders, national policy makers, researchers, and practitioners explore how technology can be leveraged to improve student achievement. CoSN’s 9th Annual School Networking Conference will be held March 2-3, 2004, in Crystal City, Va. Visit www.k12schoolnetworking.org for more program and registration information. Visit www.cosn.org or call 202/861-2676 to find out more about CoSN’s programs and activities that support leadership development to ensure that information technology has a direct and positive impact on student learning in elementary and secondary schools. About SonicWALL, Inc. SonicWALL, Inc. is a leading provider of integrated Internet security appliances offering access security, transaction security and security services for the enterprise, e-commerce, SMB, education, healthcare and government markets. Core technologies include firewall, VPN, SSL, high availability, anti-virus, and content filtering. Together, these products and technologies provide the most comprehensive Distributed Security Architecture available. SonicWALL, Inc. is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. SonicWALL trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol SNWL. For more information, contact SonicWALL at 408/745-9600 or visit www.sonicwall.com. About SurfControl SurfControl plc, the world’s number one Web and e-mail filtering company, delivers on its promise to help companies ‘Stop Unwanted Content’ in the workplace by continuous innovation, invention and expansion of its filtering products to address new content risks as they emerge. The company is the leader in the Content Security market which analysts expect to reach nearly $2 billion by 2007. SurfControl is the only company in the security market offering a total content security solution that combines Web, E-mail (including Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus) and Instant Message Filters with the industry's largest, most accurate and relevant content database and adaptive reasoning tools to automate content recognition. SurfControl’s world-class partners include Sun Microsystems, Check Point, Cisco, IBM, Research in Motion and Nokia. The company has more than 20,000 customers worldwide, including many of the world’s largest corporations. The company employs nearly 450 people in nine locations across the United States, Europe, and Asia/Pacific. For further information and news on SurfControl, please visit www.surfcontrol.com. About Symantec Symantec, the world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content and network security software and appliance solutions to individuals, enterprises and service providers. The company is a leading provider of client, gateway and server security solutions for virus protection, firewall and virtual private network, vulnerability management, intrusion detection, Internet content and e-mail filtering, remote management technologies and security services to enterprises and service providers around the world. Symantec's Norton brand of consumer security products is a leader in worldwide retail sales and industry awards. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide operations in 36 countries. For more information, visit www.symantec.com. Editor's Note: To receive a copy of the “Cyber Security: Helping Schools Protect Their Technology Assets and Fulfill Their Educational Mission” background paper, contact Charlene Blohm at charlene@cblohm.com, 210/656-2324 (office) or 210/602-1444 (mobile). Steve Miller is available for interviews during the T+L2 conference; contact Charlene for interview assistance. The CoSN booth is located on the T+L2 exhibit floor, booth 1916. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Trusted Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
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