Network engineer Jose Arellano concedes that “the hardest part of my day” is keeping the network safe for 12,700 students, 1,900 staff and more than 10,000 connected devices at West Aurora School District 129 in Illinois. The two-person security team once focused primarily on getting the network running as securely and efficiently as possible for teachers and students. “We always focused on what was inside,” with the school’s limited resources and budget, Arellano says.

When a DDoS attack took down the district’s network for more than six weeks last fall, however, they struggled to identify the problem. Now he’s had to shift his focus from prevention-only approaches to detection and response.