Weston College: Managed Firewall Services

An interview with Kerrie Monk, Head of IT at Weston College

Weston College, a leading educational institution serving nearly 30,000 learners across the country, faces the daily challenge of securing a vast and complex network. With three main campuses, numerous satellite centres, and over 4,000 devices connected, the College’s IT team, led by Head of IT Kerrie Monk, must ensure the smooth operation of critical systems while safeguarding sensitive student and staff data.

Recognising the scale of these challenges, Kerrie and her team approached KHIPU to provide a fully-managed firewall service…

——–

Question 1: What are some of the challenges you face when preparing students for a rapidly evolving workforce, particularly with regard to security?

We constantly face new requirements, especially from a security point of view. Our challenge is ensuring that students are prepared for the workforce, regardless of their industry—whether it’s cybersecurity or hairdressing. Everyone uses computers in some capacity.

At our college, we cover so many industries under one roof, which makes our job more challenging. We have to support different types of software, and some are more secure than others. This creates a range of challenges across the college.

 

Question 2: What would you say are your biggest cybersecurity challenges at present?

Our biggest challenge is one shared by the entire sector: end-user training and education. Ensuring that our users understand their role in cybersecurity is a constant for us. We need to make sure that our staff and students grasp basic concepts like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and password security. This can be difficult because the solutions have to be accessible to everyone.

In addition to awareness and training, the frequency and complexity of cyber threats are our biggest concern. Operating in the Further Education sector, we’re often targeted, which puts extra pressure on us to cover all bases. That’s why we turned to JISC and KHIPU for support. We, like the majority of the education sector, don’t have the internal expertise or budget to handle it all ourselves. Recruiting, training and, ultimately, retaining, skilled personnel is tough for organisations across the board.

 

Question 3: What was the main driver behind opting for a managed firewall service?

It’s staffing and recruitment. It’s so difficult to not only find the right people with the right levels of knowledge skillsets but also to retain them.

We can hire someone at the pay level we offer, but once they are comfortable, they often move on to new challenges. Not only this, but hiring for specialist roles often creates a single point of failure – what happens when that person goes on holiday or gets sick? This is why we decided to go external for help with the managed firewall service. We aren’t trying to pass the risk off, but we need support to handle the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape.

 

Question 4 : What would you say are the key benefits of a managed firewall service?

The proactive monitoring of threats is invaluable, and not having to worry about purchasing hardware is part of the package. The service includes a detailed scoping process, so the solution is tailored to our specific needs, including SSL encryption, network speed, and security configuration. The key thing to remember is that you can select the very best hardware, but without proper configuration, it’s useless. Having a managed service means multiple experts review and monitor the configuration, which brings us peace of mind.

The combined sector intelligence that KHIPU and JISC provide ensures that we are protected from the very latest threats all of the time!

 

Question 5: Do you feel like the managed service offers an element of education or enablement for your team?

Yes, definitely. Even though it’s a fully managed service, we have full visibility. Our team can log in, run reports, and diagnose issues before escalating them. This has helped us upskill the team. We occasionally have engineers on site, which also provides fantastic learning opportunities.

 

Question 6: Was there ever a discussion about choosing a fully managed service versus a co-managed option?

We would always choose the fully managed service. My concern with co-management is not knowing where the responsibility ends. With a fully managed service, I know that all configurations are trusted and properly reviewed.

 

Question 7: What are the key challenges for the education sector that a managed firewall service helps address?

The sheer number of potential vulnerabilities. My team and I simply don’t have the time or expertise to go through all the logs or detect subtle threats. The managed service provides multiple eyes on the problem and a depth of experience we don’t have.

Around the clock support is another major challenge for us and the sector. We don’t want our staff checking for IOCs over the weekend or through the night and a fully managed helps us to relax out of hours. If a college nearby is compromised or reports an incident, we would previously had to rush to act, but with the manged firewall service in place, we know it is being taken care of.

 

Question 8: What’s next for you and the college in terms of managed services?

We’re really happy with the managed firewall service and are now looking at a SOC service with a SIEM solution for 24/7 monitoring of our entire network. Right now, our firewall is our first line of defence, but we need broader network protection.

 

Question 9: How was the procurement process with JISC?

It was incredibly straightforward. Everything was laid out clearly, which made the process simple for us. Find out more here >

Want to find out more about how KHIPU’s Managed and Co-Managed Firewall Services can enhance your organisation’s cybersecurity? Get in touch…