IT director seeks board approval to buy CrowdStrike endpoint security; procurement completed

Travis Foschini, the county’s IT director, asked the board to approve a purchase of the CrowdStrike endpoint security solution and to sign the contract because the purchase amount exceeds $50,000. "We're submitting a proposal to purchase the CrowdStrike endpoint security solution," Foschini told the board, and said the agency deployed the vendor’s agent during a recent incident-response and has since kept the agent on county devices.

Why it matters: Foschini said the county’s IT team views CrowdStrike as an enterprise-grade endpoint-detection and response (EDR) product that detects fileless attacks, has lower false positives and requires less endpoint resources than the county’s former product, Malwarebytes. He said the vendor also provides managed monitoring, threat hunting and remediation services, which the county’s small IT staff needs. "This is a an enhanced service that we did not have with the former product," Foschini said.

Procurement and timing: Foschini said procurement and county legal reviewed the contract, that the county relied on a competitive purchasing agreement and that negotiated pricing reduced costs further. He told the board the item will be brought to them for signature at the next meeting because approval is required for purchases over $50,000. A commissioner indicated the board was prepared to consider the item at the Tuesday meeting.

No formal vote: staff requested authorization to place the contract on the agenda and signatures; no procurement decision was finalized at the meeting beyond seeking board approval on the next-day agenda.