Clever, the platform powering secure digital learning for over 100,000 schools, has officially announced the launch of its layered security solution, which is designed to deliver secure identity and access management at the disposal of K-12 schools. Bringing forth complete protection for the entire K-12 community, including teachers, students, and staff, the stated solution begins by offering you a Clever Directory where users can basically come expecting a centralized place to manage all school technology users. Next up, we have Clever Identity Management. Clever Identity Management has a big part of its utility rooted in automating account provisioning and management for the likes of Google, AD, and Entra ID. Then, there is Clever Rostering, which empowers you to use any SIS to securely create and update accounts for edtech apps. Joining the same would be Clever Single Sign-On facility. This facility, on its part, should make it possible for you to streamline and secure logins, all made possible by a wholly personalized portal. Markedly enough, the solution in question even lets you access classroom MFA. Here, the idea is to protect accounts through an extra, classroom-friendly layer of security.
“I think that it’s critical that edtech executives, including me, are proactive in leading cybersecurity strategy and key initiatives for all of our schools, from the largest to the smallest, regardless of IT resources,” said Trish Sparks, CEO of Clever. “All of our students deserve our protection.”
Beyond the given solution, Clever has also implemented what will be a blueprint for schools to use in the context of cybersecurity. You see, new Clever Cybersecurity Blueprint is going to conceive a free resource that lays out the top 5 strategies schools can adopt as foundational practices for stronger cybersecurity. These strategies happen to include securing identities and access, protecting devices, proactively managing vendors, preparing for recovery, and cultivating a cybersecurity culture.
Hold on, there is more, considering we still haven’t acknowledged how, in order to further strengthen the cybersecurity prospects across K-12 schools, Clever has also partnered with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). As a part of that development, Clever has markedly signed the Secure by Design pledge, becoming the first signatory to release its security roadmap and deliver an overview of its comprehensive security program, its commitments to the future, and a detailed roadmap to aid school security planning for 2024 and beyond.
“Our commitment to data and security is foundational to our work. We’ve signed important pledges like the Secure by Design Pledge and we employ the secure software development lifecycle,” said Sriram Seshadri, Head of Security at Clever. “School district data is encrypted in transit and at rest, we have comprehensive third-party security evaluations, and we isolate district data to prevent data intermingling.”
The entire runner also comes at a time when  school districts are under an enormous pressure, pressure which is largely created by the emerging and hard-to-spot cyberattacks. In fact, if we put our stock in the Cybersecure 2024 report. we will discover how lack of dedicated cybersecurity staff ranks as the number one challenge facing districts.
Making the effort under focus even more important would be the fact that, since starting out in 2012, Clever has reached a point where it is now trusted by more than 77% of U.S. K-12 schools.