St. Lawrence Central cybersecurity upgraded thanks to grant funding | St. Lawrence County News
St. Lawrence Central cybersecurity upgraded thanks to grant funding | St. Lawrence County News
Publish Date: 2026-02-08 04:31:00
Source Domain: www.nny360.com
Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
BRASHER — The St. Lawrence Central School District is adding another layer of cybersecurity to its technology efforts thanks to grant funding.Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul announced that the district was among 161 school districts, counties, municipalities and public authorities sharing in $9 million from the federal State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program.Also receiving funding are Jefferson County, Lewis County, the Copenhagen Central School District in Lewis County, St. Lawrence County, and the city of Ogdensburg in St. Lawrence County.The funding will support the delivery of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) hard tokens, which require two or more proofs of identity, making it more difficult for cyber attackers to gain access to private accounts.“Hardware tokens give us another safeguard where passwords alone are no longer enough,” said Kevin Welsh, St. Lawrence Central’s director of data and technology and its designated data protection officer. “They’re especially important for protecting access at the device level and for securing our systems against unauthorized entry.”Welsh had identified the grant program in September and spearheaded the district’s application. He said that, while the district already uses MFA on platforms such as Google, adding hardware tokens for device logins will provide an additional layer of protection for staff devices and the district’s broader Information Technology infrastructure.As part of the grant application, the district documented how many tokens would be required, explained why the devices were critical to strengthening cybersecurity, and outlined plans for monitoring and recording token usage.Welsh said the hardware tokens offered a practical solution to a problem facing parts of northern St. Lawrence County and certain locations within the school buildings — poor cellular coverage, which can make phone-based authentication unreliable. Hardware tokens, however, generate authentication codes without relying on cellular service.“We’ve been proactive about cybersecurity for years,” he said. “This grant helps us close a gap caused by local connectivity limits and ensures every staff member has a reliable, secure way to authenticate.”Funding was through the Combined FY2022 and FY2023 State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, a federal program jointly administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It’s aimed at strengthening cybersecurity practices and the resilience of state, local and territorial governments.“Cyber threats are everywhere and with the important role technology plays in our day-to-day lives, it is crucial that organizations have the resources they need to keep themselves safe,” Hochul said in a statement. “These tokens will go a long way in supporting our partners and making our state safer overall. We will not wait for an attack to expose vulnerabilities – we are acting now to strengthen our defenses across the state.”
