North Reading Public Schools Receive Municipal Cybersecurity Grant

House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones, Jr. (R-North Reading), Senate Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr (R-Gloucester) and Superintendent Patrick Daly announced today that the North Reading Public Schools have been awarded a state-funded Municipal Cybersecurity Awareness grant to train its employees in identifying and avoiding cyber threats.

Administered by the Office of Municipal and School Technology (OMST) within the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS), the 2023 Municipal Cybersecurity Awareness Grant Program (MCAGP) is supported by $250,000 in capital funds authorized by the Legislature as part of a 2020 general government infrastructure bond bill.

This year’s grant program will provide over 50,000 municipal and school district employees in Massachusetts with end-user training, evaluation, and threat simulation to improve their cybersecurity readiness and ability to detect and avoid cyber threats. North Reading’s grant award will provide training for 50 school employees.

“With municipalities and school districts facing a constant threat from ransomware, phishing attempts and other malicious cyber-attacks, it is important to be able to not only identify and respond to these attacks, but also to take proactive steps to prevent them,” said Representative Jones. “North Reading’s grant will provide school employees with the critical training needed to protect sensitive information contained in the department’s databases from being compromised.”

“Threats to cybersecurity are a real and growing concern, and the information contained in school databases must be protected against those threats,” said Senator Tarr. “Through the training funded by this grant, school system employees can be better equipped to identify vulnerabilities, and act now to prevent harm in the future.”

“We have participated in this program for the previous three years and in year four we are excited to continue to explore this very important work with our new hires and to provide relevant updates to our veteran staff,” said Superintendent Daly. “We look forward to participating in the phishing exercises with all staff in 2023!”

Now in its fourth year, the Municipal Cybersecurity Awareness Grant Program is open to Massachusetts cities and towns, public school districts, libraries, police and fire departments, water districts, planning commissions, and municipally-run utility departments, airports and housing authorities, as well as the Massachusetts Public Pension Systems (PERAC). Grant applicants must demonstrate support from top leadership within the government agency and a commitment that participating employees will complete the training exercises offered throughout the duration of the program.