The Network for Learning (N4L), a Crown-owned company, has enhanced its cybersecurity network services for all state and state-integrated schools and kura by partnering with and integrating the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) Malware Free Networks® (MFN) Service and CERT NZ’s Phishing Disruption Service™ (PDS) into its existing service.
N4L delivers cybersecurity network services to all state and state-integrated schools and kura on behalf of the Ministry of Education. In the year ending June 2023, N4L’s Managed Network implemented nearly 160 million security blocks, significantly amplifying the security of these schools’ networks.
It says the collaboration with NCSC and CERT NZ significantly improves security and demonstrates N4L’s capability to integrate the cyber threat intelligence expertise of other Government agencies and deliver digital services from multiple sources to schools and kura nationwide.
“Schools and kura can benefit from these enhancements to N4L’s services at no cost and without any required action – this service is already live for schools on N4L’s Managed Network,” N4L said in a statement.
“The new cyber threat intelligence enables N4L to quickly and efficiently block specific New Zealand threats, as well as global threats, across the network.”
It also allows N4L to promptly share threat intel with the NCSC and CERT NZ. N4L is able to sync with school firewalls and, in near real-time, respond to new online threats by blocking malicious websites and IP addresses without delay or the need for human intervention.
“Many principals and school boards face challenges in sourcing and funding the digital services necessary for school operations and teaching. N4L’s efforts aim to minimise these challenges for schools and the Crown. Integrating the two additional NCSC and CERT NZ services will help mitigate the risks associated with malicious software and potential loss of sensitive data,” said N4L CEO, Larrie Moore.
Mark Spadafora, NCSC’s Chief Technology Officer, says: “At the NCSC, we work every day to protect Aotearoa New Zealand and its interests. N4L’s deployment of our MFN and PDS services will bring additional security across New Zealand’s education networks and to their many users. Having MFN and PDS available to a broader range of New Zealand organisations is an important way for us to scale our cyber defence services and grow Aotearoa’s cyber resilience.”
N4L Head of Security Operations, Hayden Brown said the scale of the N4L Security Operations Centre was already significant, processing over 300,000 events per second across the Managed Network.
“These new services are now making it even more powerful to help protect schools and kura,” he said.
“Our new threat intelligence capability is an important part of a school’s armour against threats, alongside their following of good cybersecurity practices. This would include having an incident response plan and endpoint detection (anti-virus) protection in place, as well as reviewing their security controls, like multi-factor authentication.”
