Cybersecurity is complex and ever changing. It can intimidate some of the largest education institutions around. But that puts school districts – and their confidential data – at risk.
To that end, a state agency – the Iowa Department of Management Office of the Chief Information Officer – is offering top-notch cybersecurity that is scalable to Iowa’s schools, districts, community colleges and area education agencies. The security service is also being offered to the state’s nonprofit organizations.
The annual cost of the security service is $98.88 per device – a device being servers, laptops, desktops and mobile.
“It’s a commercial product that we purchased for state agencies,” said Jess Flaherty, local government program manager for the state agency. “It’s a next generation software we want to offer our schools and nonprofit friends.
“We are a state agency and are here to enhance the lives of Iowans. Let’s help our education and nonprofit partners protect the citizens of Iowa. The cybersecurity system allows us to protect Iowans across the state.”
The service provides next-generation Endpoint Detection and Response, which is a security tool that detects and prevents a wide range of known and unknown cyber attacks on computers, servers and other devices. The service also includes state-of-the-art around-the-clock security incident monitoring and response for schools and nonprofits.
“Our Security Operations Center has real people monitoring the systems 24 hours a day, every day of the week,” Flaherty said. “If we receive an alert at 2 a.m., for instance, we can contain a device so that it is no longer a threat to your network.”
The security service is designed for the highest level of work, including protecting a district’s servers. Access should be scaled, prioritizing IT staff, administrators and servers.
Educational institutions and non-profits wanting more information on the scalable security service may reach out by emailing Flaherty at government.services@iowa.gov.
“Most people will eventually experience cybersecurity problems,” Flaherty said. “We are proud that we can offer this service to Iowans.”