Page 124 - Security Today, July/August 2018

MASS COMMUNICATION
HOW TO SELECT THE BEST
MASS NOTIFICATION SYSTEM
FOR YOUR CAMPUS
Explore seven mass notification capabilities to consider when choosing a solution for your university BAy Daniel Graff-Radford
lthough some college cam- puses have long benefited from mass notification sys- tems, the current evolving threat environment facing our
education systems indicate just how crucial it is for all schools to have the technologies and communications infrastructure to inform and protect students, families, faculty and staff. Today’s university leadership must proactive- ly prepare for a myriad of threats, including active shooters, severe weather, violent pro- tests, disease outbreaks, cyber breaches and power disruptions.
In all of these cases, the school must be armed with technology to quickly and easily communicate necessary information to pre- vent loss of life and ensure the safety and security of individuals. This article explores seven mass notification system capabilities to consider in evaluating the right solution for your university.
IS THE SYSTEM A BEST FIT
FOR SIZE OF YOUR CAMPUS?
Campus size varies wildly across the country, with smaller regional schools taking up only a few acres to expansive national university sys- tems, including the U.S. Military and Air Force academies that can sprawl to more than 15,000 acres. Your campus size will play a role in the type of emergency system you select. For larger institutions, you should be able to segment your alerts by location: an alert that is vital to one area of campus is less relevant to those miles away.
Ensure that you can include specific loca- tion information in your communication so that people less familiar with your entire geography can effectively take action. In terms of hosting, you will want to explore hybrid or SaaS solutions. Although your large campus likely has an established IT team, having at least some of your solution hosted in the cloud will enable you to scale your response system much more rapidly as you adjust for size.
Universities with tens of thousands of stu-
dents and faculty should factor in a system that allows for targeted notification capabili- ties to prevent message fatigue. If all or large segments of students, teachers and staff are barraged with notifications on non-emergen- cy daily happenings, there is a greater chance they might tune out notifications of a more serious nature. The ability to hyper-target users by geographic location and other filters will help them avoid message fatigue.
Smaller campuses, on the other hand, are less likely to create message fatigue, so consider expanding your range of messages worthwhile to your audience—class cancellations, building closures or event updates. These schools will definitely want to explore SaaS options, which can help reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by eliminating the need for expensive hardware, staffing, maintenance, upgrades and dedicated infrastructure typically associated with premise-based options.
DOES THE SYSTEM HAVE APPROPRIATE DATA SECURITY AND PRIVACY?
According to Adam Benson, the deputy executive director at the Digital Citizens
Alliance, “Higher education institutions have deployed resources and talent to make university communities safer, but highly skilled and opportunistic cybercriminals make it a challenge to protect large groups of highly desirable digital targets.”
Indeed, the National Law Review reports that the education sector was the most tar- geted by ransomware, with 13 percent of all higher ed institutions experiencing an attack on their network in 2016.
As with any new technology purchase and implementation, you must ensure that your mass notification system can withstand that barrage of malicious activity and has in place appropriate data security and privacy. Security- related functions and practices, including data encryption both at-rest and in-transit, top-tier data center provisions, recipient PIN code entry, and other security features are must- haves in a critical communications solution.
You should also research to ensure your vendor offers near-100 percent uptime with 24/7/365 support across all platforms—desk- top, tablet and especially mobile—and that the solution integrates with your current anti- virus and anti-malware software.
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CAMPUS SECURITY & LIFE SAFETY