The Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) revealed it has been defending staff, faculty and students from potential cyber-attacks via the one of the largest, most comprehensive academia-based IT security solutions the Mena region has ever seen.

The UAE’s largest higher educational institution is currently safeguarding more than18,000 students from a barrage of increasingly potent and sophisticated virus and malware threats across 17 colleges throughout the country.

Designed and implemented by data storage experts Condo Protego using Symantec Endpoint Protection, the project was rolled out last year after HCT management called fora centralized protection strategy to protect the nationwide institution from the UAE’s rising tide of cybercrime.

“Targeted Internet security threats are on the rise,” said Johnny Karam, regional director of Symantec, Middle East and French Speaking Africa.

“We commend HCT for protecting its more than 24,000 endpoints and adopting a strategy to ward- off future risks and attacks by implementing Symantec security solutions. HCT has also implemented a faster, integrated disaster recovery system for a more holistic approach to information protection through Symantec NetBackup appliances.”

According to the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report Volume 17 , the number of malicious attacks continued to skyrocket by 81 per cent globally last year.

“Cybercrime has been on HCT’s agenda for a long time now so we have put measures in place to pre-empt worst case scenarios and mitigate the threat in the best, most efficient manner possible,” observed Dr Peter Heath, CIS Academic Division Head, HCT.

"We are delighted with the results so far. Everything is centralised and connected, with no single college operating in an ‘at-risk silo’, resulting in a more secure environment for learning and yielding significant operational cost-savings," said Heath.

"If there’s a virus or malware incident, we can instantly react before it becomes an issue. Another positive project outcome is that students can now travel freely between campuses without having to reconfigure their protection systems with each trip," he added.

In addition to masterminding the project, Condo Protego ensures that HCT enjoys comprehensive post-sales support, including 24/7 cover and a 30-minute response time. This also includes managing the updates for Symantec Endpoint Protection, which encompasses network, file, reputation, behavior, and repair layers of defense to provide rapid and effective protection.

Among the solution’s unique selling points is its ability to draw on the collective wisdom of 200+ million systems and over 3.1 billion files to block new and unknown malware.

“HCT is really leading by example here,” said Savitha Bhaskar, the general manager,CondoProtego.

“Protecting data in today’s education sector is a huge challenge, with students using numerous devices for both work and play," she noted.

"This is a particular problem at a vast, multi-site institution like HCT, and it is to their enormous credit that they have chosen to tackle the problem head on through placing information security and data protection at the very heart of their day-to-day operational strategy," she added.-TradeArabia News Service