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County accepts cybersecurity grants to upgrade backups and logging; licensed logging to cost about $13,400 annually after initial grant year
Summary
Saline County accepted two cybersecurity grants May 19: a $35,000 award to upgrade tape/backup infrastructure and a $15,000 award to license a commercial logging/endpoint-detection product (Elastic). Staff said the licensed logging product will improve alerting and search across about 75,000 daily logs; annual licensing estimated at $13,400 after the first reimbursed year.
Saline County’s IT director, Lauren Humphrey, told commissioners May 19 the county received two grants to strengthen cybersecurity and backup capabilities.
Humphrey said the county was awarded $35,000 through the Kansas Cybersecurity Planning Committee to upgrade the tape/backup environment. She described the purchase of a new appliance that can consolidate full backups currently spread across multiple tapes (roughly 26–29 terabytes) and noted the equipment-reserves account will cover reimbursable costs until the grant is invoiced.
She also presented a separate $15,000 grant to license a commercial logging/endpoint-detection platform (Elastic) to replace a limited freeware setup. Humphrey said the county currently ingests roughly 75,000 logs per day and that the licensed product will provide better search, alerts and integrations with endpoint logs and CrowdStrike. She told the commission the ongoing annual license cost after the initial grant year is expected to be about $13,400 and that the county will budget that cost in computer maintenance in future years.
Commissioners asked whether other products were considered and whether the grant required purchasing this specific vendor; Humphrey said the county had evaluated options but the licensed Elastic solution offered required features at a comparatively lower price point for the county’s current configuration. Commissioners moved and approved RFA 20 26-67 (backup grant) and RFA 20 26-68 (logging license) by voice votes.
