ManagedMethods helps protect students and staff while meeting data compliance requirements
Boulder, CO July 26, 2017 – ManagedMethods, a leading provider of cloud security solutions, today announced that the Steamboat Springs School District, along with a majority of member districts of the Northwest Colorado Board of Cooperative Educational Services (NW BOCES), a service agency that serves more than 8,000 students in Northwestern Colorado, has deployed ManagedMethods’ Cloud Access Monitor to protect students and staff from objectionable or threatening content, as well as secure their personal data in the cloud. Cloud Access Monitor allows Steamboat Springs students and staff to safely use Google G Suite/Google for Education for cloud email services, document collaboration and sharing by monitoring, detecting and quarantining sensitive information in the cloud before it can impact safety or compromise identity.
The Steamboat Springs IT team encountered potential compliance and security challenges when it transitioned to Google G Suite earlier last year. Compliance requirements mandated that the district must have systems in place to monitor sensitive data such as FERPA, HIPAA/PHI, and Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), and ensure that data is not being stored or shared in a way that violates policies. However, G Suite’s standard security features offered no way to audit or control document access and sharing in the cloud. The district especially needed the ability to scan documents for objectionable content (e.g. adult content and profanity) and keywords and phrases that would indicate a student is in danger (such as threats, bullying, and harassment.)
“When student safety is at risk, time is critical – our IT team needed to be alerted of potential policy violations, as well as deviations from normal data access and sharing behaviors,” said Tim Miles, Director of Technology at the Steamboat Springs School District. “ManagedMethods’ Cloud Access Monitor was easy to deploy and provided us the level of visibility and control we needed to ensure the security and safety of everyone in the district.”
Cloud Access Monitor offers both out-of-the-box as well as highly customizable policy monitoring features to cover the district’s compliance requirements. It also discovers and controls the district’s increasing integrations with third-party applications which are vulnerable to potential phishing attacks, and detects and prevents malware from entering the district’s network.
“As school districts migrate their operations to the cloud, the safety and protection of both students and staff becomes paramount,” said Charlie Sander, CEO of ManagedMethods. “Our goal was to give the Steamboat Springs IT staff immediate visibility and control of their data in Google G Suite so that they could take advantage of increased efficiency without impacting student privacy and safety. We’re pleased to work with Steamboat Springs to achieve that goal in a painless and cost-effective way.”
About Steamboat Springs School District and NW BOCES
Located in Northwestern Colorado, Steamboat Springs School District is a public K-12 district with 5 schools, more than 2,500 students, and 350 staff members. Learn more at www.steamboatschools.net. The Northwest Colorado Board of Cooperative Educational Services (NW BOCES) is a cooperative service agency providing special education and other services to its member school districts. Learn more at www.nwboces.org.
