Council in €500k deal with Paradyn

Cork County Council is to spend half a million euro over the next three years to help mitigate cyber risks for the local authority.

Paradyn, an end-to-end IT and communications service provider, recently announced that it has implemented an advanced cybersecurity and network solution for Cork County Council in a €500,000 deal over the next three years.

Having won a competitive tender process, Paradyn will implement local and wide area networks for Cork County Council, connecting its central office to its 100 regional office locations, as well as public libraries, fire stations and civic amenities throughout the county.

Paradyn’s cybersecurity team will provide the council with 24/7 network monitoring from its recently launched TotalView Operations Centre based in Little Island. This proactive monitoring enables Cork County Council to quickly identify and resolve potential security risks or breaches before significant amounts of sensitive data can be compromised.

Outsourcing the management and security of its network has reduced the time spent by the council’s IT team on network upkeep.

Eileen Kelly, Cyber and IT Security Programme Manager, Cork County Council, said: “The nature of cyber-attacks has evolved to a point where reactive security measures alone are not enough. The proactive network monitoring provided by Paradyn enables us to keep a close eye on incidents on our network so we can identify issues before they have time to cause potentially huge financial and reputation damage.”

Paul Casey, Chief Operations Officer, Paradyn, said: “By implementing global best practice controls, Cork County Council has taken a responsible and holistic approach to their security set-up. We’ve helped the council to navigate this journey to a robust level of IT security that will benefit all those who avail of the council’s services, as well as every employee using the council network daily. Our advanced cybersecurity support is ideally suited for local authorities. We will seek to implement this solution and emulate the strong example laid out by Cork County Council with other councils throughout Ireland.”