The City of Coburg Protects Network Access for Students and Teachers with Forcepoint NGFW

Looking to improve network connectivity, management and security for its schools, Coburg replaced its previous network strategy with Forcepoint NGFW. Coburg has seen several years of efficient, centralized network management with Forcepoint and looks forward to many more years.

Challenges:

• Replace outdated network management strategy.
• Provide safe network access for 20 schools, 760 teachers and 8,000 students.

Approach:

• Purchased Forcepoint NGFW with built-in Secure SD-WAN.

Results:

• Overcame complex network management that the city previously experienced.
• Administers an additional 4,000 devices for students and teachers with various levels of network access permission.

Adapting Against Evolving Threats

Coburg, a historic city in Germany, needed to modernize its threat protection to defend the city’s cyber assets.

As means of security have changed over time, Coburg knew it must update its network defense infrastructure to adapt against evolving threats to its key institutions.

More specifically, the education department’s IT team in the city needed to improve network connectivity, management and security. They are responsible for providing safe, secure network access to more than 20 schools, 760 teachers and 8,000 students.

Safe Network Access for Students and Teachers

Coburg has a fiber network throughout the city with an interconnection point to the internet at its main data center. The IT department used a two-vendor network gateway strategy to manage the network.

An explicit proxy for internet access was required for network maintenance. However, this approach stifled management resources, and it posed implementation challenges that disrupted mobile users’ connectivity.

In 2021, Coburg’s IT department converted its network protection to Forcepoint NGFW with built-in Secure SD-WAN. The city chose Forcepoint NGFW largely because of its strong reputation for fast, flexible networking and industry-leading security. 

Forcepoint NGFW helps Coburg get unrivalled visibility, control and superior connectivity with advanced threat protection and centralized management. After switching to Forcepoint, the city overcame the inefficient network system that Coburg previously used.

The switch to Forcepoint helped the city improve its resource management to further modernize its education system. It also resulted in a significant increase of users with protected network access. Now, Coburg administers an additional 4,000 devices for students and teachers with various levels of network access permission. 

Getting the Most of Centralized Network Management

To further defend its growing network, Coburg bolstered security via a BYOD wireless access network. This resulted in smooth, protected network access from home devices.

They also opted in for a VPN-Client configuration combined with Endpoint-Context-Awareness for managed devices, which enables more efficient remote device administration.

“The Forcepoint VPN-Client is fantastic. Home office connections are smooth and steady, and they work without disruption.” - Martin Stegner, Head of School System Administration Department

Coburg also enjoys NGFW’s central management solution that provides granular logging and reporting, which streamlines administrative work and enables quick responses to IT maintenance requests. 

“The Forcepoint Log utility gives us granular and quick filter capabilities, which is brilliant support for our daily troubleshooting.” - Martin Stegner, Head of School System Administration Department

Intrusion prevention, antivirus, SSL protection and transparent proxy capabilities are a few other product features that Coburg leverages to safeguard network access for its students and teachers.