As one of the premier suppliers of workforce development throughout the state of Tennessee, The Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) knows that they need to continuously integrate new resources into their curriculums to provide their students with the educational experience they need to succeed.

Their commitment to providing quality training to upcoming professionals have clearly paid off; studies of the college have found that 95% of their students find employment within their field of study after graduating.

In order to maintain this level of excellence in the modern world the college simply could not afford to avoid providing its staff and students alike with secure and reliable internet access.

The Dangers of Unfiltered Web Access

While the internet is an indispensable resource, it’s not without its risks.

Between cybercriminals eager to steal sensitive information with malicious websites, tempting distractions for students, and limitless amounts of inappropriate content, the internet is equally as capable of harm as it is for good.

TCAT’s CIS/CIT Instructor Gabriel Alvarado was all too aware of the responsibilities the college had to protect its staff and students against internet-based threats.

Without suitable internet security solutions in place all it would take to compromise their network is a single misclick from one of their users.

Simple & Intuitive Installation

Web filters such as CurrentWare’s BrowseControl are critical for ensuring that students and staff use the internet responsibly.

When Gabriel was searching for a web filtering solution he was pleased to hear that the CurrentWare team had several colleges and schools among its existing customer base.

When it came time to deploy BrowseControl, Gabriel was pleasantly surprised to learn that the included remote client installation tool allowed him to install the CurrentWare Client software on all of their computers from a single central location.

Rather than being forced to wait until the holidays when students were away Gabriel could unobtrusively deploy the software during the school term.

TCAT’s Configuration Strategy

Once deployed, Gabriel was able to apply unique internet and application access permissions for students and staff; this level of granularity provided TCAT with everything they needed to ensure that each user in their network had access to the resources they needed while restricting access to everything else.

To provide the utmost security and fully ensure that only approved websites were accessible, Gabriel used BrowseControl to block all websites that were not on its URL Allow List.

This ensured that student data was safe against data egress points such as cloud storage sites while still providing staff and students access to the resources they need.

BrowseControl Makes Applying Unique Internet Access Permissions a Breeze

While only allowing access to a limited list of approved resources is the most secure way to restrict internet access, it requires frequent updates as new websites are needed.

Fortunately for Gabriel, BrowseControl’s intuitive user interface and ease of access allowed teachers to easily control the internet access permissions of their classroom in real time.

Should a new website be required for a lesson they could effortlessly log in to the central admin console and add it to the Allow List in just a few clicks.

BrowseControl Improves the Education Experience of Students & Staff

BrowseControl was well received by staff and students alike. The students were especially grateful that the college’s bandwidth would not be wasted by other students who were misusing computers to play games or stream videos.

Proactively blocking these bandwidth hogs ensured that the network ran smoothly, allowing it to meet the needs of its staff and students.

Restricting internet access became a key part of TCAT’s cybersecurity strategy, offering yet another security control to keep their students and network safe.