Building a Human Firewall with Arctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness

Superior North Catholic District School Board (SNCDSB) serves students and staff across Northern Ontario through nine elementary schools and administrative facilities. With a strong commitment to providing safe, inclusive, and innovative learning environments, SNCDSB recognized that cybersecurity extends beyond technology; it’s also about empowering people.

In today’s threat landscape, phishing, social engineering, and human error remain among the top causes of security breaches. SNCDSB sought a solution to strengthen its human firewall, educating staff to recognize, report, and resist cyber threats while fostering a culture of security awareness and compliance across all sites.

Like many school boards, SNCDSBs IT department operates with limited resources while facing growing security demands. The board identified several key challenges:

• Growing human-centric risks from phishing and social engineering attacks targeting staff.
• Difficulty maintaining staff engagement with traditional, long-form security training.
• Limited internal capacity to design, manage, and track ongoing awareness programs.
• The need for compliance readiness across privacy and education regulations, including PIPEDA and ministry requirements.

To address these challenges, SNCDSB partnered with Cloud Managed Networks (CMN) and Arctic Wolf to deploy Managed Security Awareness (MSA), a fully managed platform that combines curated content, expert oversight, and data-driven insights to change user behaviour and reduce human risk.

Tailored to the boards environment, the solution included:

• Bite-Sized Microlearning: Engaging, fresh video lessons delivered bi-weekly that fit easily into busy school schedules, staff find the format interesting and look forward to the content.
• Prepackaged Phishing Simulations: Realistic simulations that test staff readiness and automatically assign follow-up learning for anyone who clicks.
• TruClick™ Technology: Filters out false positives to ensure accurate reporting and genuinely actionable insights.

• Phishtel™ Engine: Automatically analyzes reported emails and assigns threat levels for prioritized response.

• Fully Managed Delivery: Arctic Wolf experts manage all program deployment, content updates, and engagement tracking, eliminating administrative overhead for the IT team.

• Compliance Training Modules: Covers key regulatory topics to support policy alignment and audit readiness.

Since implementing Arctic Wolf Managed SecurityAwareness, SNCDSB has seen meaningful improvements across its human security posture:

• Increased Engagement: High staff participation & retention
• Reduced Phishing Risk: Fewer incidents & faster reporting
• Compliance Ready: Simplified audit & policy tracking
• Human Firewall: Staff actively defend the organization

"Arctic Wolf’s Managed Security Awareness platform has transformed how our staff think about cybersecurity. The microlearning format keeps everyone engaged, and the simulations turn awareness into action. We've seen real behaviour change; our team now spots and reports phishing attempts faster than ever before."

— Billy Luby, Information Technology Manager, Superior North Catholic District School Board