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 firm. The firm shall identify and provide solutions for members to manage risks regarding their key information and systems assets, ensuring availability, confidentiality, and integrity of the information on a continuous basis.
The services for this specific RFP will be focused on vulnerability assessment of external and internal information assets. The security assessment shall be performed remotely and/or on-site. The assessment must follow industry standard best practices and use experience and expertise to assist participating AEA Purchasing Members in identifying possible vulnerabilities. A comprehensive report containing recommendations for remediation of vulnerabilities must be included in the assessment.
The goal of the resulting contract(s) is to provide an overall vulnerability assessment program which consists of multiple years of vulnerability scanning and security testing services to help evaluate the security posture of the AEA Purchasing members. The frequency of these assessments will be performed quarterly (at minimum) throughout the Contract Term, as well as during any additional contract extensions. The project will incorporate (where applicable) periodic and predictable vulnerability scanning at the network, client and server level for both external and internal facing information assets as well as cloud hosted services, including websites.
The vendor will conduct network vulnerability testing to determine vulnerabilities and compromises on the network. At minimum, the testing shall include the following:
- External Network Vulnerability Assessment
- Internal Network Vulnerability Assessment
- Cloud Hosted Solutions Vulnerability Assessment
AEA Purchasing contracts allow AEA Purchasing members the option to take advantage of aggressive pricing based on the purchasing volume of many Iowa AEA Purchasing Members. School district networks may contain buildings in multiple cities/communities with multiple independent networks with different public Internet connections.