Syracuse Common Council on Dec. 8 approved a state-funded cybersecurity grant to acquire 1,500 licenses for a DNS-filtering solution, Councilor Majak told members during the meeting.

The grant, Majak said, is a targeted cybersecurity initiative funded by the State of New York Homeland Security and would supply 1,500 licenses "for a DNS filtering solution from Cisco call umbrella to be deployed through the city and the SBD department." With no objections, councilors voted in favor and the item passed.

Why it matters: city information-technology and service-delivery systems increasingly face cyberthreats, and the council’s action authorizes the city to accept state funding and deploy a DNS-filtering product designed to block malicious or unwanted domain requests at the network level. Councilors framed the purchase as a preventative cybersecurity measure to be managed through the city’s existing SBD department IT channels.

What the council said: Councilor Majak introduced the item and described the grant’s scope and vendor. After the explanation the president called the roll and the council adopted the item.

Details and next steps: The council record identifies the funder as the State of New York Homeland Security and the vendor as Cisco (Umbrella). The council record did not specify the grant award dollar amount, a deployment schedule, or which city systems will be prioritized; those implementation details were not specified at the meeting.

The measure passed during the meeting and will move to city staff for implementation steps and acceptance of the grant award as required by city procedures.