Deployment Timeline
This school district was looking to use certificates for Wi-Fi security, meaning RADIUS server technology and a CA (Certificate Authority) would be needed to issue certificates after validating users against their Rapid Identity SAML identity provider.
The IT team was originally skeptical about completing their network integration using a cloud network. They contacted SecureW2 in August 2019 and were surprised that with our deployment assistance, they were able to complete a network integration that would support more than 20 campuses in a matter of hours.
Challenges
This school district has been a Lightspeed Systems content inspection customer for more than 11 years. They understand that more than 60% of overall traffic and over 80% of malware traffic is SSL encrypted, and with so much encrypted traffic flowing across their networks, content visibility was proving to be a challenge to the security policy.
To address the problem, the IT team knew that the best solution was to implement Lightspeed SSL decryption certificates on every device. This led them to seek a way to remedy their content visibility issue when devices entered their wireless network.
Because the BYOD web authentication Wi-Fi network needed to be revamped to address new challenges, they wanted to leverage certificate-driven WPA2-Enterprise Wi-Fi security. Their research for vendor options needed to take into account that the device configuration process must be a simple and self-service process to highlight independence, which is an educational pillar of the school district.
Additionally, the plan for managed Chromebooks was to move them from pre-shared key settings to unique certificates, just as they had done with BYOD devices. They understood that certificates offered better visibility and user tracking on the network.
Solutions
SecureW2 was able to meet all the guidelines the IT staff set forth for their wireless security. A BYOD solution for students and staff needed to work on all major operating systems. SecureW2’s lightweight, dissolvable client technology allowed their users to go through a one-time setup and configuration process to install the Lightspeed content filter and SecureW2 Wi-Fi certificates.
This meant a fast and painless setup, reducing the need for a help desk or IT staff intervention. SecureW2 also allowed the team to have control access by setting expiration dates on certificates, limit the number of certificates, and revoke a certificate at any time.
Evaluating Success
When asked about the overall experience with working with SecureW2, the IT team was elated. Jerry, a key member of the team stated:
