Hawaii Safeguards Schools Statewide Using Intrusion Protection Systems From TippingPoint

Overview

In 2004, officials at the Hawaii Department Of Education (HIDOE), the oldest public school system west of the Mississippi, confronted what school districts nationwide dread. The notorious Blaster worm struck the local area network (LAN) of one of its 275 K-12 schools and spread like wildfire across the district's Wide Area Network (WAN). The attack was a costly lesson. HIDOE's schools rely heavily on its wired and wireless LAN/WAN infrastructure for teaching and administration, and the statewide school district could not afford another attack. After dismissing anti-virus software solutions because of their ineffectiveness against spyware and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, HIDOE assessed Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) from McAfee, Juniper Networks and TippingPoint, a division of 3Com.