5 Steps to Achieving Endpoint Resilience in Education CHALLENGE 1 Stretched IT teams and limited budgets The number of skilled IT security applicants is not keeping pace with demand, and there will be an estimated 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2021.i This resource shortage especially impacts the education sector, where budgets are limited and attractive candidates are repelled by lower salaries. Restricted funding and resources make it difficult for schools to hire and retain staff with the security specialization required to manage increasingly volatile cyberattacks. In addition, crumbling infrastructure, outdated operating systems, and vulnerable networks are in much need of a 21st century makeover, but continued legislative slashes to budgets mean nearly all money is diverted to core curriculum. IT ISSUE BUSINESS ISSUE “I don’t have a team with security specialization.” “We lack funding for dedicated security resources.” 5 Steps to Achieving Endpoint Resilience in Education SOLUTION 1 Tap into tech-savvy volunteers and adopt intuitive endpoint security Maximizing your campus budget and IT resources requires two important approaches: Recruit tech-savvy volunteers IT staff can offload some workload by tapping into the tech-savvy people in the school community to provide assistance. Recruit a parent volunteer who can train staff, and create staff and student classroom cyber heroes who can assist with basic troubleshooting. Adopt endpoint security that’s extremely easy to use The workload on IT staff means education institutions need security solutions that work well with a “set-it-and-forget-it” approach. Unfortunately, legacy antivirus solutions have not been delivering effective security against advanced malware. They require extensive care and tuning, which staff don’t have time to manage. Adopting an endpoint security solution that is designed for extreme ease of use will alleviate management overhead and relieve resource constraints. The solution should not require advancedlevel analyst expertise to manage and will align with an IT generalist’s skillset. This will free up your IT team to focus on other projects, saving your school time and money. Advantages for schools: • A school community is full of many helping hands, and this applies on the IT front as well. Recruiting volunteers to support simple IT tasks also creates buy-in that everyone can be a part of the school’s cybersecurity efforts. • A simple, intelligent, and automated endpoint security solution helps reduce your IT resource constraints and allows IT to focus on other priorities that keep your educational ecosystem running smoothly.