Keep remote faculty and staff productive and secure

The work hasn't stopped for the faculty and staff members of schools that have temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  There are still numbers to crunch, reports to run, grant applications to file, and student or employee data to keep current.  Schools that remain in-session with virtual learning face additional complexities.  Faculty members may need access to local desktops, file servers, or applications that are hosted inside the school network.  This pandemic has presented IT teams with a variety of challenges on a large scale.  Many schools have been caught unprepared for this level of disruption.

How we can help

A client-to-site Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection will enable each school employee to access all of the resources they need to do their work from home.  Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is a solution that makes it easy to protect your network from intrusion and malicious attacks, while also providing secure remote access to resources for off-campus employees.

 Secure remote access

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall provides several mechanisms to ensure remote users can securely access their network resources.  Employees working from home or on public wifi networks can be exposed to bad actors attempting to eavesdrop on the traffic between the user's computer and the network. VPN client-to-site connections are used to connect an individual device, such as a laptop or mobile phone, to the school network. The VPN client running on the client connects to the VPN service on the firewall. 

With secure remote access, the traffic is encrypted and there is no unauthorized exposure of user credentials or other sensitive data.  This allows the authorized user to access network resources from wherever they have an Internet connection. For example, school administrators can securely access student records and teachers can make changes in a grading system from their home offices.

Support for BYOD and other personal devices

Despite the ubiquity of personal smartphones and tablets being used by school employees the practice of 'bring-your-own-device' still presents some challenges.  Devices can be lost or stolen, public wi-fi can be compromised, and unpatched devices can put connected networks at risk.  Secure VPN access with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall allows users to work with their devices without compromising the security of the network.

There's no need for difficult deployments and configuration, despite the variety of devices, access levels, and connectivity conditions among your network users.  Barracuda CloudGen Firewall offers multiple options for secure remote access so that your users can access the network securely, regardless of device. Whether a user needs constant native access to installed applications or infrequent access to a few files from a web-browser, Barracuda has you covered. CudaLaunch, the Barracuda SSL VPN portal, and the Barracuda VPN Client are easy to deploy and simple for remote workers to use. 

Network security and remote access

The Barracuda client-to-site VPN provides users with a secure path to the networks where resources are located.  Barracuda CloudGen Firewall secures the access to these resources with rules, group policy settings, and specific protocol controls, and never shares these resources outside of the network.  Administrators have multiple levels of control over VPN authentication and access configurations.

The Barracuda Network Access Client offers an additional layer of control for Windows, macOS and Linux users.  The Network Access Client is a package of utilities that includes the Barracuda VPN client, a personal firewall, and an access monitor that sends Windows health status to the access control service.  With this client in place, the Barracuda CloudGen Firewall administrators can enforce Windows Updates and other Windows security settings.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall allows IT teams to provide unlimited VPN sessions without exposing the network to intruders or malicious attacks.  There are multiple on-premises and public cloud deployment options, and our award-winning support team is available to help you when you are ready to install and configure. 

Barracuda can help – please reach out to learn more.