At today’s meeting of the Brown County Commissioners Court, approval was given to expenses for improvements to the County’s computer systems security.

The Commissioners voted to enter into an agreement with Goldsmith Solutions of Austin for IT Security Services.  The agreed upon services will include Enterprise Endpoint Security with Antivirus, email backup, email link filtering, and firewall management for all County computers.  The cost for these services will be $5,636 per month.

The Commissioners also voted to purchase certain computer hardware items from Goldsmith as part of the computer systems security effort.  The County will purchase 75 APC Pro 1000VA ten-outlet battery back-ups for $170.49 per unit; three Sonicwall TZ370 firewall units with rack mount kit for $1,377.10 per unit; and two APC Net Shelter SX units for $2,403.78 each.  The total cost of these items is $21,725.61.

The monthly security services will be paid out of County contingency funds.  The three hardware purchases will be made with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

Sam Goldsmith of Goldsmith Solutions commented: “Brown County has some of the challenges that all Texas counties have.  We say that if you’re on the internet you have to be protected 100% of the time and you have to be right 100% of the time.  But the malicious actor has to be right only one time.  So the Court has been committed to making these technology improvements and to securing the County’s systems, so that we can build for the future and provide better service for the citizens of Brown County.”