Inyo County OKs three-year managed security contract with eSentire

Inyo County supervisors voted to approve a three‑year contract with eSentire to provide a managed security services solution that consolidates endpoint, email and network monitoring and adds a 24/7 security operations center and recovery support.

County Chief Information Officer Chand told the board the county currently uses three separate services—ESET for endpoint protection, Microsoft for email protections and the Department of Homeland Security’s Albert for network detection—and said the lack of an integrated, round‑the‑clock response and limited recovery expertise left the county at risk. ‘‘If we get an alert at 3 a.m., we may not be able to do anything until we come into work,’’ Chand said during his presentation.

Chand and Assistant CIO Abi said eSentire was selected through a request‑for‑proposals process. eSentire will replace and consolidate the county’s monitoring tools, supply a 24/7 onshore security operations center and offer investigation, hunting and recovery expertise. The proposed contract is three years at $90,314.50 per year. Staff told the board the county expects to realize roughly $39,500 in annual cost reductions by retiring overlapping services once eSentire is in place. Aaron Holmberg, the county risk manager, noted the county’s cyber insurance deductible is $50,000 and observed the contract could pay for itself if it prevents even two claimable incidents.

Board members asked about employee impacts and whether the service would change how employees log in; staff said the transition would not require county staff to reset all passwords and that eSentire operates with a California presence and onshore support. Staff also said eSentire’s headquarters are in Canada but the company maintains operations in California; the vendor supplied a binding quote that staff said would not be increased retroactively in the event of tariffs.

Public comment included a supportive statement from the county risk manager about the deductible and several technical questions about the vendor’s use of artificial intelligence, which staff said would be used to assist human analysts rather than fully automate decisions. After questions, the board made and seconded a motion to approve the information services request and authorize the CIO to sign the contract with eSentire. The board carried the motion by voice vote; the minutes record a voice vote and the chair announced, “Motion carried.”

Staff will return any required contract documentation to the county’s procurement and finance processes and implement the migration and service onboarding steps with the vendor.

The board also directed staff to correct an incorrect budget code in the staff report (radio budget code replaced with the computer upgrade budget account 011808) before finalizing paperwork.