Internet security has its price and in the case of Saanich, it is more than $650,000.
Saanich council Monday unanimously awarded X-10 Enterprises ahead of other three other companies a contract to design, implement, and manage the municipality’s new firewall designed to keep it malicious hackers and protect sensitive information.
The municipality did not release the name of the current supplier, citing security concerns.
The budget for designing and implementing the firewall adds up to $150,500 (including contingency) and comes from the 2017 capital budget.
Management of the firewall amounts to $104,790 per year, with the first year pro-rated to $83,832.
Megan Catalona, a spokesperson for the District of Saanich, said the new system marks an improvement.
“The legacy systems that Saanich has relied on to protect our computer environment are outdated and need to be replaced,” she said. “The integrity and availability of our computer environment has become more important as our business increasingly relies on computer systems and internet connectivity. As stewards of Saanich corporate information and citizen information, we need to ensure adequate and best practice measures are taken to secure data.”
Catalona declined to answer questions about the safety of Saanich’s computer system, including questions about the number of attacks and changes in the number of attacks over time.
“Again, we can’t disclose this information for security reasons,” she said.
The item did not generate any debate.
