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Mobile Device Management (MDM) Goes Off to College with Kaseya

MDM College Kaseya

MDM College KaseyaWhat is more mobile then a college or university campus. If you were to follow a student around for a day it would be an endless journey from dorm, to cafeteria, to class (hopefully), to the library, back to the cafeteria, back to class, back to the dorm, class, library, class…you get the idea. All the while, that student needs to access information through the college or university network for educational or recreational purposes.

Considering today’s new technology coupled with today’s higher education environments, one can almost guarantee that nearly every student on any given campus will own a mobile device that allows for such access. Whether it be a laptop, tablet or smart phone, today’s students are equipping themselves to be connected. The University of Michigan enrolls over 27,000 undergrads. That is potentially over 27,000 end devices constantly access the universities network to gain access to class materials and information for various fields of study. For the IT department that is over 27,000 possible security threats and points of access for data or security breaches. And with the amount of student and university personal, medical and financial information housed in the university network those would be no small breaches.

In a recent blog post Kaseya offers a few tips or best practices for IT Administrator when it comes to securing, controlling and managing these mobile end devices on college or university campus. They write, “Mobile device management solutions at colleges and universities should enable granular configuration of all mobile resources and empower IT staff to manage the health and security of both traditional and mobile endpoints from a single pane of glass.” They offer three steps to focus on which are included below. Click here to view the full blog here and check out more posts from Kaseya.

  • Safeguard the network – This includes security of transmission, a secure on-campus network, or VPN off campus. IT can configure and secure on and off campus networks through certificates, which automate the login process and make it secure.
  • Safeguard information and documents – All sensitive data on the device need to be encrypted. Put in place a policy that, if the encryption is turned off, you can pull data off the device.
  • Safeguard the applications – For schools writing campus-oriented apps, make sure the app manages data securely and that you can delete the app, if necessary. If the iPad or device is university-owned, you need to blacklist/protect against any “rogue apps.”

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