Securly Filtering - Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD)

Overview

Along with assigning school-owned devices to students, schools can also choose to allow students and staff to bring their own devices (BYOD) to school. For some schools, BYOD filtering might be a route to go in the face of budgetary constraints.

The BYOD network may require schools to be equipped differently. It is very important that you keep BYOD network architecture segmented from the rest of your network so that your network is not affected by any software, malware, etc. Once your primary BYOD segmentation is in place, you can then go ahead and determine what filtering policy would be applicable to them.

• You can either choose to assign BYOD networks standard Securly policies that you would assign to users on school-owned devices.
• Or you can use the Guest Network Policy which provides basic filtering. For more information on the Guest Network Policy Please see this KB.

What options are available for BYOD

If you want an easy experience with your BYOD, it is advisable to use the Guest Network Policy as an easy baseline policy.

For greater insight into the network traffic on BYOD, filter them the same as a school device using the standard filter policy. BYOD traffic will be logged to the user’s history the same way it is logged for school devices.

Tips for Installing the Securly Certificate to BYOD for Standard Filtering Policies  

• Set up a splash page on your Wireless Network to direct you to the certificate download.
• Set up a page on your school's website with instructions for installation.
• IT admins can manually install the certificate for BYOD.
• Send instructions via email to all users.

Note that the device without the Securly certificate is filtered the same way as the device with the certificate. The Securly certificate is only used to decrypt HTTPS sites. If the certificate is missing there will be an SSL error.

You can view our webinar on BYOD and guest network best practices at https://vimeo.com/215063352