Finally, Beacon One Services has arrived!! Beacon One Services provides practical cybersecurity and vulnerability management for K-12 school districts and public sector organizations. We specialize in continuous internal and external vulnerability scanning, risk prioritization, and clear, actionable reporting designed for environments without full-time security staff. Our approach focuses on reducing real-world risk—not just generating alerts—by …

After a lengthy and complete bid process, AEA purchasing has selected Martin Yarborough and Associates of Fort Worth Texas the coveted state contract for 2022-23. The purpose of the RFP was to establish a contract that allows any AEA Purchasing member to have access to information technology control evaluations and security assessments by a qualified …

I am a huge fan of David Letterman. I used to end my day watching and laughing to the various skits on his show. Sorry he is not on anymore. He was and is a class-act. One of my favorite skits was his weekly Top 10 lists. So I was thinking, with all of the …

Those of you who know me are aware that I am a HUGE fan of videoconferencing. Even back in the Dell days, the videoconference was my primary method of communicating with my coworkers as well as my customers. As a private consultant, 90% of my business is conducted via videoconferencing. It’s important when embarking upon …

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) originated in the public sector of Great Britain in the 1980s as a framework of standards for IT services. ITIL continues to be widely adopted across the world by organizations of all sizes and industries. Recent Forrester research has estimated that ITIL adoption among billion-dollar companies will increase to 40% …

Another framework widely accepted is the Control Objectives for IT known as CoBIT. CoBIT is another approach to standardize good information technology security and control practices. This is done by providing tools to assess and measure the performance of 34 different IT processes within an organization. The IT Governance Institute is responsible for CoBIT. ITIL …

I The dynamic nature of today’s educational environment combined with the rapid pace of technological change means that IT management must be dynamic and flexible to changes in the marketplace. So IT managers need to be dynamically managing all IT resources, including staffing, systems, outsourcing, services, education and others. Included within this component is sustaining …

Once the previous four components have been implemented, organizations must ensure that IT is continuing to add value to the operation. That value can only be proven if performance metrics can be established, monitored and tracked. Through the establishment of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), schools or universities can gauge relative success of given IT projects …

ITIL COBIT ISO The Big Three To assist a school or university and deploying IT governance procedures and policies, several standard frameworks have been created over the past 30 years. All of the frameworks are situational, good and have their place within an organization. However it has been the experience of this author that there …

So you’ve become a CIO, you’ve worked at creating policies, processes and strategy and you just became the “golden boy” in the eyes of the Board of Directors; so what’s next. Simply this, you now must learn to manage risk of the policies, processes and strategy. Technology risks can range from security related issues such …