Board approves $22,715 annual contract for Abnormal email protection after phishing incident
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Summary
IT director Cam Elwood told trustees the district had identified thousands of phishing attempts during a trial of Abnormal and described a recent student-account compromise; the board approved a $22,715 yearly contract to extend staff email protection.
Cam Elwood, the district's technology lead, asked the board to approve an annual subscription to Abnormal, an automated email-threat protection service. Elwood said staff had run the system in read-only for about six weeks and it had flagged roughly 4,000 phishing attempts during that period.
Elwood described a recent incident in which a student account was compromised and used to send phishing-like messages. "Cam found it on Saturday afternoon... I was able to log in from my phone, pull those emails away," Elwood said. He told trustees the incident prompted consideration of adding student protections, but the immediate purchase request covered staff accounts.
The purchase was budgeted in the technology core budget and Elwood said he had already set aside funds for the annual renewal. Trustee (speaker 5) moved to purchase Abnormal for $22,715 per year; the motion was seconded and the board voted unanimously to approve the contract.
Next steps: Elwood will implement the system for staff immediately and continue evaluating student-account protections for a future additional purchase.