Fortinet Security Awareness and Training
Fortinet has made an education version of its Security Awareness and Training Service available to the K-12 sector at no-charge.
Focused Education shares information on services and resources that might be of interest to our members, to inform local decision-making and strategy development. We understand there is a need among all citizens to develop greater awareness of how to navigate safely in the cyber-world. As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, Fortinet has made an education version of its Security Awareness and Training Service available to the K-12 sector at no-charge. Focused Education has reviewed the service, and piloted its use internally, to assess content and implementation requirements. We see value in the content which addresses a gap in available resources for K-12. Having the content modules offered in both English and French is a benefit to the Canadian context. We encourage members to review this information from their district and independent school perspective, to determine whether, when, and how they might use this resource. Contact information: Interested districts should email this monitored mailbox: k12sat.bc@fortinet.com, indicating the number of licenses required. Fortinet staff will coordinate with the IBM K-12 and Fortinet teams to respond to all inquiries.
Updated Date:
FAQ
This FAQ addresses questions that are commonly asked when a resource is being considered for use.
As part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, Fortinet has customized its Security Awareness and Training Service for the education sector to help staff become more cyber-informed, and to avoid breaches at school and home.
Beginning October 11, 2023, this service is being made available at no cost, to K-12 school districts across Canada, in both English and French.
The value of increasing security awareness among K-12 may include:
Creating better protection for personal data; for staff as employees, and for the district/system as
a whole.
- Reducing risks of privacy breaches by staff.
- Reducing IT costs related to managing infections and removing malware.
- Increasing staff knowledge and confidence in working within a cyber-secure environment.
- Increasing a district’s overall cybersecurity maturity.
The service is hosted on U.S. servers.
Licensing
In British Columbia, Fortinet is partnering with IBM to manage district access. Districts would
order the resource through IBM for $0 per user. This is to enable Fortinet to provision district
access to the service. See contact information below.
Administration Interface
Districts are provided with their own administrative interface. This enables them to permission
and enable user access, to monitor activity and develop reports to inform their security
awareness planning.
Fortinet will have a record of which districts have opted to use the service through their order with IBM. The reporting data collected is configurable. It could include start and completion date for the content modules, first name, last name, and work email.
There are several options for creating user access, all of which require a work email, from a recognized
domain. These include:
- Email with unique password (Fortinet account)
- SSO (SAML2) – Customer based solution
Users can be imported using:
- CSV import
- LDAP import
- Provisioning of users individually
The training is for individual use. Similar to a learning management system (LMS) application, as users
complete each module and the accompanying quiz, they are advanced to the next module. This makes it
possible to complete the training in multiple sessions.
There is an option for users to receive a certificate of completion at the end of the training.
Fortinet has minimal branding in the service, similar to most of the digital resources being used by
districts now. Districts can add their own branding to materials such as tip sheets and posters. They can co-brand their
view of the service website, as well.
This service is for K-12 staff use. Fortinet is working with Canadian educators to develop and beta-test a
no cost curriculum for five age groups within K-12. This student resource is being created using Canadian
spelling. The materials will include a teacher’s guide, ready-to-teach lesson plans, lesson slides, student
handouts, and multimedia assets. Seven lessons will be provided for each of the five age groups and will
include cross-curricular resources to easily integrate into existing classes. Anyone who has access to the
service will automatically receive access as it becomes available.
Focused Education will be participating in that beta testing process. A sample of the student modules will
be available October 2023 with the remainder being provided throughout 2024.
Contact Information
Interested districts should direct inquiries and provide the number of licenses required to this monitored mailbox: k12sat.bc@fortinet.com where Fortinet staff will coordinate with the IBM K-12 Team.
Guide
This guide outlines the technical implementation steps for accessing, licensing and configuring your individual tenant controls to support your local requirements and deployment.
Contact information: Interested districts should email Connor Croucher ccroucher@fortinet.com with the number of required licenses. Connor will coordinate with the IBM K-12 team and the Fortinet team to action all inquiries.