The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the formation of the Joint Cyber Defence Collaborative (JCDC). The JCDC leads the development of the Nation’s cyber defence plans by working across the public and private sectors to help defend against cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure.
Through this new collaboration, CISA will promote national resilience by coordinating actions across federal agencies; state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) partners; and private sector entities to identify, protect against, detect, plan for and respond to malicious cyber activity targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. The JCDC’s mission for unifying cyber defence will complement existing efforts by law enforcement and the intelligence community.
According to the JCDC fact sheet, the new organisation will:
- Identify unique public and private sector planning requirements and capabilities.
- Implement effective coordination mechanisms.
- Establish shared risk priorities.
- Develop coordinated cyber defence plans.
- Support joint exercises and assessments to measure the effectiveness of cyber defence operations.
CISA Director said that the JCDC presents an exciting and important opportunity for this agency and partners – the creation of a unique planning capability to be proactive versus reactive in the collective approach to dealing with the most serious cyber threats to the nation.
Officials from federal partner agencies will work within the JCDC office to spearhead U.S. cyber defence plans while outlining best practices to thwart cyber intrusions and reduce their impact, according to a CISA webpage about the new collaboration.
A major goal for the JCDC is to coordinate public- and private-sector strategies to counter cyberattacks, especially ransomware while establishing incident response frameworks. The Department of Defence, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command are among the government partners.
These are the key JCDC capabilities:
- Comprehensive, whole-of-nation planning to address risk both during steady-state operations and during an incident.
- Common situational awareness and analysis to equip public and private partners to take risk-informed coordinated action.
- Integrated cyber defence capabilities to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure.
- Flexibility in planning and collaboration to meet the cyber defence needs of the public and private sectors.
- Institutionalised exercises and assessments to continuously measure the effectiveness of cyber defence planning and capabilities.
- Work closely with the Sector Risk Management Agencies (SRMAs) to bring their unique subject matter expertise to tailored plans to address sector risk.
JCDC will create an inclusive, collaborative environment to develop proactive cyber defence strategies and help both sectors implement coordinated operations to prevent and respond to cyberattacks. Continued collaboration between industry and government is critical to thwarting today’s sophisticated attacks. CISA’s initiative to bring the most relevant stakeholders together to defend national security is admirable.
As critical infrastructures are susceptible to cyberattacks, US researchers have created a cybersecurity technology designed to lure hackers into an artificial world to protect these infrastructures. As reported by OpenGov Asia, the cyber tech is based on honeypots, which attract hackers by providing what appears to be an easy target so cybersecurity researchers can study the attackers’ methods.
While most honeypots are used to lure attackers and study their methods, this cyber tech instead uses artificial intelligence to deploy elaborate deception to keep attackers engaged in a pretend world that mirrors the real world. The decoy interacts with users in real-time, responding in realistic ways to commands.
The development of this technology is an example of how U.S. scientists are focused on protecting the nation’s critical assets and infrastructure. This cybersecurity tool has far-reaching applications in government and private sectors—from city municipalities to utilities, to banking institutions, manufacturing, and even health providers.
