North Cook News

At the June 6 Maine Township High School District 207 board meeting, Chief Technology Officer Don Ringelestein spoke about a cyber security incident in May and how a cybersecurity firm the board ultimately hired kept it from getting worse.

"We were doing a proof of concept with CrowdStrike at the time, and they actually identified the first part of the incident and helped alert us to it, and also provided us with free support for probably three days until we we actually made the purchase," Ringelestein said. "They were invaluable in helping us. They do partner with our insurance company and with the legal firm that represents - that our insurance company uses for cyber security incidents. So had we not had this things could have been worse.”

According to Ringelestein, the district experienced a cyber incident from May 19-27. Though the computer systems were attacked, there was no breach. No data was lost in the system and the district did not lose any productive time either - all systems are still up and running.

The district entered a three-year contract with CrowdStrike to help monitor and protect their systems. Because the district does not have the internal staff to monitor and prevent any future incidents, it had been looking into companies that could help when the incident happened.

The contract with CrowdStrike costs over $100,000 and was the second lowest price of all the companies that placed a bid for this contract, however it was the lowest bidder that also covered every single one of the district’s systems. The certifications of CrowdStrike’s employees exceed those of anyone currently working in the school district.