Universities around the world face many of the cyber-security challenges encountered by businesses and government agencies

NETSCOUT partners with UMASS to protect university from cyber attacks.

Following the news  that hackers have been targeting UK universities, NETSCOUT announced today that it is partnering with the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell) to protect the university’s network from cyber-attacks.

In recognition of the plight of higher education establishments, NETSCOUT is donating NETSCOUT Arbor Edge Defense (AED) software and hardware to the university’s IT department. 

“At UMass Lowell, our network is constantly being scanned for attacks, threatening everything from research to human resources and payroll,” said Jim Packard, UMass Lowell’s chief information security officer.

“We realized we needed better DDoS protection and determined that NETSCOUT’s Arbor Edge Defense solution was best-in-breed. Right out of the box, this solution provides far more than just DDoS protection, making it a perfect fit for our purposes and a critical element in our suite of security measures. Higher education is not immune from attacks, which is why AED’s first and last line of defense capabilities are exactly what we needed.”

“As student interaction and testing are increasingly done online, universities across the country, and around the world, are facing many of the same cyber-security challenges encountered by businesses and government agencies,” said Carlos Morales, NETSCOUT’s vice president and general manager of DDoS Mitigation Services.

“UMass Lowell has a great program in place to ensure network security, and it recognized that NETSCOUT’s innovative, market-leading Smart DDoS technology can help further harden the network against DDoS and other internet bound threats. Partnering with the university’s IT team not only helps protect the university’s vitally important network, it also provides NETSCOUT with invaluable feedback and sharing of threat intelligence. This will, in turn, help us evolve our solutions to better help other universities and higher education programs.”

As part of the partnership, UMass Lowell has committed to share indicator data based on what NETSCOUT AED blocks, providing NETSCOUT with insights into what kinds of threats are targeting the university.

This data will not contain IP addresses or any other personal information. NETSCOUT will also gain feedback from periodic user experience studies on installed devices.