Customer’s Profile
Sacred Heart Schools on Sheridan Road – The Academy of the Sacred Heart for Girls (founded in 1876) and Hardey Preparatory for Boys (founded in 1935) – are independent, Catholic, singlesex elementary schools committed to academic excellence within the context of a Christian community. Sacred Heart Schools welcomes students of all races, religious beliefs and socio-economic backgrounds.
This educational mission is deeply rooted in the 200-year tradition of the Society of the Sacred Heart and shared with the Network of Sacred Heart Schools located on every major continent, including 24 schools in the United States and Canada.
Situation
Sacred Heart Schools serves children in kindergarten through eighth grade in three small academic divisions. Each division enrolls over 200 boys and girls and is led by a division head who works closely with the students, faculty and parents of the division.
The schools’ low student/teacher ratio of 9:1 reflects its commitment to providing a learning environment that is challenging and supportive to a variety of learners.
When looking for the highest levels of privacy and confidentiality, security became a very high priority for Sacred Heart Schools. In fact, a committee was set up that focuses itself exclusively on security. This committee looked at all aspects of the schools from fire drills to vendor contracts.
The security requirements were focused on protecting the information of their students, parents, alumni, employees, and applicants, as well as reviewing and enforcing policies and procedures that will keep their data safe. That’s why they were working on finding ways to protect their network and their endpoints. Panda Solutions fulfilled the endpoint protection requirement perfectly, according to Jeff Smith, Technology Systems Administrator. “It was exactly what was needed to make sure our computers stayed secure.”
Solution
Sacred Heart Schools started using the product in August 2015. They were researching next-generation endpoint solutions that would not only take care of malware, but be active in analyzing anything going on their computers and recording it.
They needed something that went way beyond traditional antivirus products. They researched many vendors with similar products, but it seemed as though a full-time person was needed to just manage the product and make decisions. So they needed something simple and something that was mostly hands-off. “Panda’s Adaptive Defense was exactly what I needed. It not only was vigilant, but it could process unknown files without any interaction needed,” said Jeff Smith. In a school setting, system administrators have many systems to attend to and Panda Adaptive Defense required so little management.
“I really liked how a lot of the aspects of the product were automated. Also, being able to see logs of the activity was outstanding. It could cut down our response times for a data breach significantly.”
Evaluation
The benefits of Panda Adaptive Defense were evident from the very beginning. Jeff Smith said, “I saw the advantages within the first few weeks. We had issues with our users getting all kinds of malware installed on their computers. It would cost us a lot of time to clean them up, and it seemed like it would never end. When I put Panda on their machines, all of that was gone. We have not had a case like that since we had all of the machines protected. It was such a relief and saved us many, many hours of labor.”
The feeling of control of what is being run on the computers is one of its main benefits. Making sure that processes are doing what they should be doing and that new programs are being examined right on the spot is powerful.
Also, if there is a data breach, finding out what computer(s) the malicious activity takes place on and what information may have been leaked could save a lot of time and money.
Benefits
Sacred Heart Schools finds that Panda Adaptive Defense protects them in two main ways:
- First, Sacred Heart does not want any of their data out in the public. Their priority is to protect the data the best they can.
- Second, they needed to keep malicious software from taking over their machines. An infection is not only risky, but it takes away productive time for the user that works on that machine.