The firm, which supplies schools with educational products, has taken note of the trend and has partnered with a software and technology services company, Impulse Point, to help its clients address that concern.

It's been a known problem on college campuses for some time, according to Jay Reed, senior product manager.

“It has been popular in higher education where students like to take their laptops into class with them,” he said. “Now, in the last year or two we're starting to see it in regular school districts on the K-12 level.”

Reed said having students or teachers bring in laptops, touchpads or smartphones can be beneficial to a school that can't always afford to equip everyone with the latest in technology. But that benefit can also pose a danger as more and more foreign devices are logging onto a school's network.

“Especially with the kids and their gaming. It's easy for them to become infected with malware and then to pass that along,” he said.

The Impulse Point software monitors the privately owned devices that are logged onto a school's network to make sure they are “bug free” and properly secured, so that they don't bring in a virus that could knock out the entire system.