Solanco SD board approves Red Canary cybersecurity monitoring contract

The Solanco School District Board of School Directors voted March 17 to approve a contract with Red Canary for active endpoint monitoring and remediation services.

IT staff member Jason Salters described the service as a two-part program: an endpoint detection and response (EDR) agent that runs on district devices and 24/7 monitoring and incident response provided by Red Canary. Salters said the vendor produces incident reports and recommendations shortly after alerts occur and works as an extension of the district’s internal IT operations. “This service is 24/7/365,” Salters said, describing a recent after-hours alert where the vendor had an incident report prepared by the time he logged in.

Salters outlined typical responses: lower-risk infections are cleaned and returned to users; medium- and high-severity events generally lead staff to isolate or “nuke” affected devices and rebuild them to eliminate persistent threats. He told the board that many alerts occur after hours and during holidays, adding that the district relies on layered security measures to reduce risk.

Board members asked clarifying questions about whether infections can be traced to sources and about the consequences for infected machines. Salters said sometimes a source can be identified but that malware often moves through multiple vectors; he gave an example of a compromised CAPTCHA on a website that infected a device when a user visited the page.

A motion to approve the Red Canary active monitoring and remediation services passed by voice vote with no opposition recorded. Board members thanked Salters and his team after the vote.

The board’s motion authorized the superintendent or designee to finalize the contract and proceed with implementation; the transcript did not specify contract length or dollar amounts.