U Nottingham Deploys Internet Security and Filtering Appliance -- Campus Technology

Cybersecurity

U Nottingham Deploys Internet Security and Filtering Appliance

By Dian Schaffhauser
04/25/08

The University of Nottingham has deployed a Web security appliance from Finjan to protect its two primary networks, one with 12,000 university-owned computers used for teaching, research, and administration and the other supporting 8,000 student-owned PCs.

The university has multiple gigabit connections to a regional metropolitan area network, which in turn connects it to the UK Joint Academic Network (JANET). Following an evaluation by the school's information services organization, it opted for Finjan's NG8000. This hardware appliance provides centralized management for Web content scanning and anti-virus through multiple scanning blades. The Finjan solution has been integrated with the school's existing Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) load balancer.

"Increases in Web-borne attacks mean that traditional signature-based anti-virus software alone is not enough and can't give us the protection we need against new and evolving malware threats. Students are often heavy users of social networking and other collaborative Web 2.0 enabled sites which require more proactive threat detection and prevention techniques," said Paul Kennedy, security & compliance group leader at the university. "During the initial deployment we were able to identify a number of threats to the network that had previously been difficult to detect. Active content scanning gives us an additional tool... for detecting and preventing crimeware attacks against university data and members' personal information."

The IS security staff manages activity via co-hosted policy server blades. These "all-in-one" appliances run Finjan's content inspection utility, Vulnerability Anti.dote, and anti-spyware engines, as well as McAfee's anti-virus engine. The deployment covers the university's five main campuses and nine satellite sites, including campus data centers, staff desktops, student laptops, shared access computer rooms, and laboratory equipment.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

E-Mail this page

Printable Format

Featured

IBM Releases Granite 3.0 Family of Advanced AI Models

IBM has introduced its most advanced family of AI models to date, Granite 3.0, at its annual TechXchange event. The new models were developed to provide a combination of performance, flexibility, and autonomy that outperforms or matches similarly sized models from leading providers on a range of benchmarks.
California Governor Vetoes AI Regulation Bill, Calls for More Targeted Approach

California Governor Gavin Newsom has rejected Senate Bill 1047, a proposed landmark AI regulation aimed at safeguarding against the misuse of the technology.
Purdue Opens Large Esports Facility

Purdue University has opened a new gaming lounge for students training and competing in esports as well as casual gamers. The institution partnered with Dell Technologies to outfit the 2,000-square-foot-space with Alienware gaming equipment.
NIST's U.S. AI Safety Institute Announces Research Collaboration with Anthropic and OpenAI

The U.S. AI Safety Institute, part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has formalized agreements with AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI to collaborate on AI safety research, testing, and evaluation.