KINGWOOD — itMindshare, the company that handles Preston County’s IT infrastructure, presented its recommendations for the 2022-23 fiscal year at the most recent Preston County Commission meeting.
It’s been a very interesting year, said Brandon Pitrolo, solutions architect and account manager for itMindshare. Despite the resurgence of two COVID variants, the departure of employees and remote work, everything was maintained.
“We have not missed anything, we have been able to help augment to the support getting on with a new contract,” Pitrolo said. “And we have maintained and stayed within budget of that contract.”
He said the new proposed contract is largely the same as it relates to hours and equipment. However, there are new iPads for the commissioners.
Overall, the county’s security posture is very good, Pitrolo said.
“We have the appropriate software deployed on all of our main infrastructure equipment, we have still more to do in security, and we’re getting there. But there is no financial cost to that.
One drastic proposed change is MDR EDR software, which Pitrolo said is an endpoint detection or a managed endpoint detection and response program. It’s the same software the county’s cyber insurance would use should it ever be activated and having it would put the county ahead of the game.
“What this application does is it tracks forensic information and how processes and things are working on a computer,” Pitrolo said.
The program, which costs $27,000, is highly recommended and Pitrolo said he also wanted to make it a permanent line item.
Pitrolo warned places such as Preston County – not a mom and pop operation but not a big government entity – are the new preferred targets for hackers.
“You saw earlier in the last year and this year, where they were targeting the big companies, they are no longer doing that, because it has become a big risk to them,” he said.
Commissioner Don Smith asked if American Recovery Plan Act money could be used for the software cost.
“I know it’s not an enormous amount of money, but still, you know, $27,000 is $27,000,” Smith said.
County Administrator Kathy Mace said she knew there was a section of the ARPA money that could be used for cyber security but she wasn’t sure on the exact rules and would have to look into it.
She also noted it would only help for one year.
Smith said he knew that but it would at least help for this budget year because the commission had talked about helping other organizations, too.
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