Industry Trying to Fill Gap Left by CISA Meltdown
It is no news that CISA fired a third of its staff, hundreds more quit, even more have been forcibly moved to other agencies, the agency has not had a director in the last year and a half and morale is in the toilet.
Given all that, a few large companies in private industry have read the tea leaves and have figured out that relying on CISA to help them deal with cyber threats is not going to happen in the next couple of years.
In fairness, CISA is trying to hire back some people, but given the mess over the last 16 months, it is highly unlikely that the staff that they will be able to hire is going to be among the best and the brightest. Maybe they will be middling to adequate. This is not what industry needs.
Say welcome to The Alliance for Critical Infrastructure. This CANNOT replace CISA, but, at least, it can try to help fill the void left by CISA’s meltdown for critical infrastructure.
The founding members are:
- AIG (insurance, finance)
- AT&T (communications)
- Berkshire Hathaway Energy (electric and gas)
- Consolidated Edison (energy)
- JP Morgan Chase (banking)
- Lumen Technologies (communications)
- Mastercard (finance)
- Southern Company (energy)
- Xcel Energy (energy)
The group is now creating working groups, identifying pilot projects and reviewing membership applications.
Their focus is totally on critical infrastructure, energy providers and the like. So, other than accidentally, this is probably not going to help you and me.
On the other hand, we all want the lights to work, fuel for our businesses and cars and water to come out of the tap, so this is a good thing.
But, this is not going to replace the thousands of people that CISA fired, unfortunately.
I wish them the best of luck, both ACI and CISA. ACI realized they are on their own and even though they are the most important players, hence calling them critical, they are on their own and so are you. Are you prepared? If you could use some assistance, please contact us. Credit: Cybersecurity Dive
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