Adams County approves Microsoft license upgrades and grants IT authority to act to counter email/cyber incidents

Adams County commissioners unanimously authorized the county’s information-technology director to upgrade Microsoft licensing and to take “necessary things” to protect county systems after a series of email and intrusion incidents.

IT Director Mike described repeated malicious email and account-intrusion attempts and said the county needed to move users to higher-security G3 Update 2 licensing to obtain logs and controls that were not available on lower-tier accounts. “How can we stop this now? … they said, well, you have to move to update 2, g 3 update 2,” he said, describing Microsoft’s recommendation.

Mike said the county already pays an annual Microsoft volume-licensing bill and has budget lines for software maintenance; the requested change would add higher-tier licenses for roughly 150 accounts and would cost tens of thousands of dollars in the current year. Mike said he has funds available in county line items and would seek further council approval if needed later in the year.

Commissioners authorized the purchase during the meeting. Commissioner Stan moved that the IT director be permitted to take the actions necessary to keep the county safe; another commissioner seconded and the motion passed. “Do do what he has to do to keep us safe and do whatever he wants to do,” a commissioner said when approving the purchase.

County officials said the upgrades will also support cloud-based applications used by other county departments and law enforcement, which require tenant relationships and modern licensing to operate securely and integrate with vendor services.