An Improved Version of the Cyber Tool
Several years ago, Cisco rebranded OpenDNS enterprise security products as Cisco Umbrella. Having reviewed the solution before as OpenDNS, and now as Umbrella, I was surprised by how it remains one of the most comprehensive security solutions for schools to administer, even as it adds new features, such as cloud-based deployment and management and an improved user interface.
More important, the easy deployment of the solution and its simplicity to manage remain intact, placing it among the most crucial tools for keeping school networks safe. Also, by providing this solution in a cloud-delivered security architecture, Cisco adds the ability to provide security that scales with any changes to the academic environment. It’s no longer a problem to add students, classes or even whole campuses and expand protection.
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Another improvement is that Umbrella requires little maintenance after setting up the initial configuration and policies. It’s intuitively built to do most of the heavy lifting itself with little to no human intervention. Just under 10 minutes after configuration, Umbrella will be protecting any devices with access to a school’s internet.
My favorite feature on the new Umbrella-branded platform is the dashboard, which allows administrators to view the threats Umbrella has thwarted and where those attacks were trying to land. You do not need an advanced degree to understand what is happening in terms of security. You get real-time access to a host of information about your network’s security posture right from the main interface.
Just like its older versions, Umbrella makes it simple to view and modify your threat protection. Users can even submit their own requests to the administrator to review a site they want unblocked or something they think might be suspicious, making security more of a community endeavor.
Before the Umbrella branding, most of the OpenDNS tools that folded into this platform were highly accurate, but they weren’t always easy to use. You could also run into problems trying to monitor all of them at the same time. By folding everything under Umbrella and improving the interface, Cisco has created a security product that is much more than the sum of its parts. That’s just what busy school IT professionals need in this increasingly hostile threat environment.