$7 million in public safety grants awarded to Massachusetts communities

BOSTON — Nearly $7 million in public safety grants have been awarded to assist communities, school districts, and other state and local government agencies across Massachusetts to address their most pressing cybersecurity needs.

The towns of Middleton, Marblehead, and Manchester-by-the-Sea filed a successful joint application that will provide the communities with a $133,800 cybersecurity grant. The grant will be used for migration to a .gov domain and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrative account management in all three communities. This year marks the first time these grants have been awarded in Massachusetts.

The funding was recently announced by the Office of Grants and Research within the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS) as part of the Municipal Local Cybersecurity Grant Program and State Share Cybersecurity Grant Program.

Both programs are funded through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration.

The North Shore Regional IT Collaborative drafted and submitted the joint application for Middleton, Marblehead, and Manchester-by-the-Sea on the towns’ behalf. Formed in 2021, the collaborative takes a regional approach to help address the information-technology challenges faced by its member communities, including Danvers, Essex, Hamilton, Wenham, and Topsfield.

“We are grateful here on the North Shore for the Municipal Cybersecurity Grant of $133,000 from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security,” said Colby Cousens, chief information officer for the North Shore IT Collaborative. “This funding will help us enhance our cybersecurity measures and support our community IT needs. It is a vital step in securing our digital infrastructure and advancing our mission of providing secure and efficient IT solutions. The support of the Commonwealth is a welcome boost in our efforts to build a standardized and secure collaborative.”

“It is critical that our communities and the organizations within them have the resources they need to prevent and respond to cyber attacks,” said state Sen. Brendan Crighton (D-Lynn). “The funding provided by these grants will bolster key cybersecurity infrastructure that guards against the exploitation of our personal information.”

“Securing our digital infrastructure is critical for our community, and this grant allows us to take significant steps forward,” said state Rep. Jenny Armini (D-Marblehead). “We are grateful to the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security for its investment in our regional IT collaborative.”

“Cybersecurity remains an ongoing concern for municipalities and other government entities, given the increasing number of bad actors seeking to exploit weaknesses in their computer networks and databases to steal sensitive personal and financial information,” said House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. (R-North Reading). “These grant awards will help communities implement robust safeguards to prevent cyber-attacks and to quickly respond to these threats so their data infrastructure is not compromised.”

“Given the proven potential for cyberattacks to not only cause disruption but also serious harm, in our lives, we need to continue to work to ensure that the digital information that we depend on is made secure and safe from threats of all types,” said Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester). “These grants will assist the receiving communities and the school to be proactive in developing, identifying, adopting, and deploying the most effective tools and methods to protect that information and data.”

“With ever more sophisticated scams, forms of social engineering, and means of cyberattack, it is critical that we properly secure our state and municipal information technology infrastructure,” said state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante (D-Gloucester). “Implementing multi-factor authentication is a common sense measure that will increase the security of government accounts, protecting residents and taxpayers from those who would seek to steal their data and defraud our cities and towns.”

In addition to the joint grant award, Middleton, Marblehead, and Manchester-by-the-Sea will also benefit from a $100,000 grant awarded to the Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School, which counts all three towns among its 17 member communities.

The Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School’s grant will help to fund the implementation of MFA. The school reports that it “currently faces significant unmet cybersecurity needs, primarily in the realm of securing access to information systems owned and operated by the District,” the most pressing of which is the implementation of MFA “across all our digital platforms and systems.”

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