The DHS and two of its agencies, CISA and FEMA, on Tuesday announced the launch of a new campaign whose goal is to help critical infrastructure organizations become more secure and resilient.
The new campaign, called Shields Ready, complements an existing campaign named Shields Up, which focuses on providing recommendations and other resources that can help critical infrastructure organizations reduce risk in response to specific threat intelligence.
Both Shields Up and Shields Ready cover not only cyberattacks but also physical security threats such as terrorism and targeted violence, and natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes.
The goal of the Shields Ready initiative is to encourage organizations to strengthen resilience and be prepared for potential disruptions.
The list of recommended practices includes identifying critical assets and systems and understanding their dependencies, assessing risks, developing strategic risk management plans, and exercising incident response and recovery plans and continuously improving them.
As part of the cybersecurity aspect of Shields Ready, CISA is offering many resources, including newly released guidance to help emergency managers plan for and respond to cyber incidents.
CISA is also offering a service for evaluating operational resilience and cybersecurity practices, and aid for conducting tabletop exercises.
“Our nation’s critical infrastructure entities—from schools to hospitals to water facilities—must have the tools and resources to respond to and recover from disruption,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly. “By taking steps today to prepare for incidents, critical infrastructure, communities and individuals can be better prepared to recover from the impact of the threats of tomorrow, and into the future.”
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