Securus Alternatives

[Steve21]

Good Afternoon All,

 

So our Securus renewal is coming up soon and was just wondering what other alternatives there are out there? Just seems Securus hasn't changed a single bit since I've been working in IT so looking at if any other options are about.

 

Obviously the big one being Impero but with those problems currently is anyone using any other software?

 

Thanks,

Steve

[RichCowell]

I can highly recommend Impero - I've been using it for about 5 years, and have been thoroughly impressed with the support, and the frequency of the updates... and the new features they've brought in since too...

 

ANME Members get a discount if they're new to Impero too, so if you've got any questions or want a (no obligation) quote, sign up online - Join | Association of Network Managers in Education ANME - all free to join/attend etc.

 

Also worth noting, that Impero is the most common e-safety solution amongst the 380+ ANME members by about 28%

Edited September 15, 2015 by RichCowell

[Steve21]

Aye I've used it before, but just not sure we can justify the costs on top of the issues they've been having recently. Certainly will have to have a look and see prices based your PM but certainly looking elsewhere too

 

Many thanks,

Steve

[RichCowell]

Aye I've used it before, but just not sure we can justify the costs on top of the issues they've been having recently. Certainly will have to have a look and see prices based your PM but certainly looking elsewhere too

 

Many thanks,

Steve

 

Completely understandable...

 

Just regarding the recent issues - I think they handled it fairly well to be honest - I don't want to start the whole debate now it's in the past, but their support generally all the time I've been using it has been exceptional... and if you compare the costs against alternative solutions for other things you may be using it's likely to be able to save your money... Also if you've not got anything in place for power-management, Impero includes that and can tell you how much you've saved - which can provide a RoI and make it a more favourable option...

[pete]

We're using eSafe after doing a head-to-head trial against Securus and talking to the school down the road.

 

Securus: I was expecting Securus to be like tweaking Smoothwall - generally decent defaults, contextual analysis to avoid false positives, and maybe a few days tuning it to suit our needs. Instead, I found a system that squawked every time someone typed in cockburn, bumbling and other words which led to inadequate reporting. On top of that, it still required Java 6.something or other despite it having gaping security holes.

 

Being sufficiently unimpressed with the product did get an admission that they really needed to sort our contextual analysis but it was at least 6 months down the line.

 

----

 

eSafe: It's more expensive, about 50-75% again of the Securus cost. But the reports that get sent to you are actually a) relevant and b) actionable as they've been reviewed by a human before being sent on to whoever's herding eSafety.

 

Based on our experiences with Securus (and taking into account when we'd have eventually beaten it into shape), it was cheaper (salary/yearly hours * estimated time herding Securus) to buy the more expensive product.

[B1enji]

Have you looked at Smoothwall e-Safe?

[pete]

Have you looked at Smoothwall e-Safe?

 

Are you guys rebranding Guardware or is this a Smoothwall product? The one-pager on the site doesn't make it clear whether this is something SW (that can be made aware of and talk to an inhouse SW proxy already running https interception) or not.

[skyhawk]

Hi All,

hope this helps,

we use Impero and to be truthful we would be stuffed without it, it pretty much does do everything we need it to do and more, Violation captures, roll's out MSI's, remote control, teacher admin for ICT rooms, Print management, instant blocks, instant Internet blocks for those darling students who persist in trying to access Hacking, Porn, Google, Proxy bypass, yade yade yade yaaaa, it has been brilliant, ok we have like any other software had a couple of issues but the support from Impero has been brilliant, you can shut down specific computers at set times, boot them up at set times, "Brilliant" ***** from Middtech.

 

if contacting them for Quotes just pass our name on to them (nope we don't get anything back just a Thank You)

 

Andy

Middleton Technology School.

[skell]

SmoothWall e-safe works by installing a key-logger on each PC in the school, so I'm led to believe.

[B1enji]

SmoothWall e-safe works by installing a key-logger on each PC in the school, so I'm led to believe.

It's a little bit more complicated than that.

[Davit2005]

 

Securus: I was expecting Securus to be like tweaking Smoothwall - generally decent defaults, contextual analysis to avoid false positives, and maybe a few days tuning it to suit our needs. Instead, I found a system that squawked every time someone typed in cockburn, bumbling and other words which led to inadequate reporting. On top of that, it still required Java 6.something or other despite it having gaping security holes.

 

 

My only memories of Securus was the hours spent looking through all the alerts, why it was IT supports job when there were plenty of inherited infrastructure issues to sort is another story (i.e. failing backups, servers full of viruses and DC issues). Being a rough area school there were quite a few alerts where teachers had put down what the students had said .

Edited October 30, 2015 by Davit2005

[robjduk]

We ditched securus last year as it was clunky to look through and its list of words it would watch for was written by someone born in 1910. We have Lightspeed reports in place so can monitor certain students if we wish and are going to look for a solution to educate students and parents at BETT this year rather than the IT route.

[Alis_Klar]

Every School in Birmingham gets Policy Central Enterprise from Link2ICT but I wouldn't recommend as its needs java and like securus has to be tuned to avoid false positive words such as assessment and assembly cause alarms to go off!! Is updated for extremist words now.

 

Personally If we weren't getting Policy Central for free I would look seriously at Impero

[RichCowell]

I'd be worried that any system not generating quite a lot of false positives initially wasn't catching enough... But it was far easier configuring and fine tuning Impero compared to Securus when we had a trial of that...

[mrforgetful]

Does the Smoothwall offering only have key capture or does it analyse screen content and as such also catch violations in-application what were not typed by the end user?

[pete]

Does the Smoothwall offering only have key capture or does it analyse screen content and as such also catch violations in-application what were not typed by the end user?

 

They're offering Guardware from e-Safe.

 

It does key capture and in-application capture. It also does an SSL MITM locally to grab websites. Things it captures are sent via https to the company (e-Safe) where a human then assesses the results. Minor-leagure shenanigans are emailed in a weekly report to the designated safeguarding lead + backup (by default). Major-league shenanigans are sent there and then/phoned in (if super-serious).

 

The way it records or can prove violations *is* problematic however. Website information can't be presented in context so if robustly challenged by the person being accused it's not that useful without accompanying evidence (proxy logs for example). This is because they only capture and record the dodgy bits - if a website has say 8 things on it and 2 are inappropriate you only get the URL(s) for the inappropriate image/whatever and a powerpoint containing a screen grab of said images.

 

You can (and should) configure it to not capture online shopping and banking and applications containing personal data (SIMS, Payroll).

 

From my point of view it's better than Securus, but the evidence wouldn't be reliable for an industrial tribunal or court action and it's often hard to judge context from the reported violations.

[mrforgetful]

Just heard back from out LA confirming it is resold from e-Safe.

 

Yes we've had a couple of teachers 'caught' looking at things that are fine. I've seen the reports and they could be more detailed. 'User typed 'gay' no other information available' is not a great detail to go on. Could be anything.

[MrPstv]

Every School in Birmingham gets Policy Central Enterprise from Link2ICT but I wouldn't recommend as its needs java and like securus has to be tuned to avoid false positive words such as assessment and assembly cause alarms to go off!! Is updated for extremist words now.

 

Personally If we weren't getting Policy Central for free I would look seriously at Impero

 

You get Policy Central for free? I doubt it:)

We have to pay for that and i can guarantee you are paying for it..

[dhm83]

Policy Central is certainly not free, it is in the region of £622 for primary, Securus is in the same ballpark at £450 for small schools and £750+ for bigger schools. Policy Central has done nothing but frustrate me, with crippling my older hardware and the endless false positive screen captures. Securus was initially a lot better, but has disappointed me of late with so many false positives, and no real infrastructure updates since we have had it. I have had a trial of Impero and was impressed, but with the issues they have had recently I am not so sure now. Link2ICT are now offering a free trial until March of Netsupport which essentially does the same job as Impero. So at the moment not sure which way I will be turning. I have got until 31st March to decide.

[mrforgetful]

I can recommend ESafe for the fact it's a monitored solution so from an administration point it's very low maintenance.

 

http://www.esafeeducation.co.uk/

 

Or it's available through Smoothwall.

[DrCheese]

I had a convo with the e-safe guys - I don't see how any school would be happy with their data going offsite to be reviewed by an offsite "GCHQ" as it were - The data protection headaches of this alone put me totally off it.

[mrforgetful]

It was approved on a level above our, and involving multiple LEA(s) and they signed up to it so that's good enough for me.

[skell]

@DrCheese that was exactly my thoughts when I first heard about this.

[DrCheese]

They didn't seem to understand why we would feel uncomfortable about it - It was the same old "Well if you have nothing to hide" arguement that drives me up the wall. We don't have anything to hide, but lets say... it picked up a screengrab of the finance manager's screen with all payroll/budget information or if the business manager is dealing with a sensitive personal issue then suddenly you've got external people knowing all this internal confidential data.

[skell]

"But they've got sigma 7 clearance! It's OK!"

 

/s

Edited January 27, 2016 by skell