County IT consultant presents security and inventory findings; final project list due

Avion (IT consultant, Stronghold) told the Bourbon County Commission on an IT work session that Stronghold’s preliminary assessment found a mix of adequate equipment and significant configuration and lifecycle gaps that increase security risk and operational fragility.

The consultant said the assessment identified needs for network segmentation between the county and city fiber, clearer asset control, reconfiguration of a recently installed firewall, routine patching and a disaster-recovery plan, and remediation of inactive or unsupported machines. "The higher [the risk score] is, the more concerned," Avion said when explaining the report's risk scoring.

The county’s preliminary report lists 266 computers found in the domain and — by Avion’s account — roughly 181 inactive devices that have not checked in recently; it also flagged a set of servers and legacy operating-system instances that cannot be upgraded to current supported versions. Avion told commissioners that Stronghold will map device serial numbers to manufacturing lifecycle data and recommend which workstations can be reallocated, repaired or retired to limit replacement costs.

Why it matters: commissioners oversee county-wide email, network and endpoint security and must prioritize limited budget dollars. Avion said most immediate costs will be for labor and configuration rather than wholesale…