Category: Industry News

Industry News

SAFECOM and NCSWIC Address Communications Dependencies on Non-Agency Infrastructure

Agency News, Industry News, Power/Energy/Oil & Gas sector, Telecomms sector, Transport sector
The world of emergency communications can be astoundingly complex, especially as additional capabilities and services become necessary to successfully deploy, maintain, and protect communications systems. Many agencies rely on multiple third-party entities to provide these capabilities, including provisioning of critical system infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other services. For example, agencies readily rely on commercial vendors for subscriber units or on commercial utilities for power supply. An agency and its contracted non-agency entities alike are vulnerable to events that threaten the uptime, continuity of services, operations, or resiliency of communications. Regardless of how unpredictable these events may be, agencies can take steps to be prepared when those disruptive events occur.
Using the depth of experience among their members, SAFECOM and the National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators (NCSWIC) have published a white paper―Public Safety Communications Dependencies on Non-Agency Infrastructure and Services—outlining several techniques to prepare throughout the communications system lifecycle for challenges associated with such dependencies, as shown in the graphic.
Given the potential for disruptive events impacting non-agency partners, public safety stakeholders—including system administrators, public administration officials and decision makers, and other communications personnel—might benefit from understanding the potential complications or obstacles they may face when depending on outside sources for infrastructure or services.
To learn more about this document and other helpful resources, visit cisa.gov/safecom/technology
Author: Ted Lawson, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Joint SAFECOM and NCSWIC Technology Policy Committee Federal Lead
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Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers.

CISA, FBI, and HHS have released AA20-302A Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector that details both the threat and practices that healthcare organizations should continuously engage in to help manage the risk posed by ransomware and other cyber threats. The advisory references the joint CISA MS-ISAC Ransomware Guide that provides a ransomware response checklist that can serve as a ransomware-specific addendum to organization cyber incident response plans.

CISA, FBI, and HHS are sharing this information in order to provide a warning to healthcare providers to ensure that they take timely and reasonable precautions to protect their networks from these threats. CISA encourages users and administrators to review CISA’s Ransomware webpage for additional information.

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How UN collaboration is shaping the concept of 'Circular Cities'

Industry News, Transport sector
“Extending a lifespan or increasing utilization over that lifespan,” says Okan Geray, Strategic Planning Advisor for Smart Dubai. “These are the two key elements of circularity – create another life, or a life delivering more value.”
Applying this thinking to the workings of a city reveals a broad scope of opportunity to achieve ‘Circular Cities’, explains Geray.
Geray leads the Thematic Group on Circular Cities within the United for Smart Sustainable Cities Initiative (U4SSC), an initiative supported by 17 United Nations partners with the aim of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11: ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’.
“The guide is a world first. Outlining the wealth of opportunity to build circularity into cities, the guide presents a more holistic view of circularity than the now well-established idea of Circular Economy,” says Geray.
“The resulting concept of Circular Cities offers a new way of thinking about not only economic aspects of cities but also their social and environmental dimensions.”
< Download the 'Guide to Circular Cities' free of charge >
Guiding cities from evaluation to action
The Guide provides a ‘circular city implementation framework’ for cities to define the best course of action to improve circularity.
It outlines a four-step methodology for cities to assess opportunities for circularity, prioritize the opportunities capable of delivering the most value, catalyze associated circular actions, and evaluate the impacts of these actions.
“The first stage is all about baselining, almost a checklist for cities to take stock of where they stand today and where they aim to go,” explains Geray.
The Guide begins by mapping all of the ‘assets and products’ found in a city to provide a high-level categorization of opportunities for circularity.
It proceeds by highlighting the ‘circular actions’ that cities could apply to these assets and products, actions including sharing, recycling, refurbishing, re-using, replacing, and digitizing.
It highlights the ‘outputs’ resulting from circular actions, outputs such as more energy-efficient buildings, a longer lifespan for water resources, or more inclusive uses of public spaces.
The Guide also highlights the wide range of ‘enablers’ that cities can apply to catalyze these actions.
“These enablers are potential policy tools to stimulate circular actions,” says Geray. “These enablers might include, among others, Key Performance Indicators, R&D programmes, public-private partnerships, training and capacity building, and financial incentives for circular actions.”
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NCSC Update Guidance on Principles for the design and build of in-house Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

Agency News, Industry News, Power/Energy/Oil & Gas sector, Telecomms sector
A private Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is used to confirm the identity of users, devices and services hosted or connected to privately owned infrastructure.
This is an essential component of any system that uses a private PKI for authentication, as such it must be designed and built with great care.
This guidance provides a set of high level architectural design principles which can be used to design, scope or review a private PKI architecture.
Fur further details visit NCSC >> 
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NCSC welcomes EU cyber sanctions against Russia following attack on Germany’s Parliament

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News
The National Cyber Security Centre – a part of GCHQ – has welcomed EU cyber sanctions against Russia’s GRU following its cyber attack on Germany’s Parliament in 2015.
The sanctions are being brought against two Russian GRU officers and the GRU’s military intelligence unit 26165 – codenamed APT28 and Fancy Bear – who were responsible for the attacks.
The Foreign Secretary has confirmed the UK will enforce asset freezes and travel bans on those involved.
The NCSC, which supported the attribution of the attack to the GRU, welcomed the sanctions and the multinational and joint approach being taken with allies standing in solidarity against the attacks.
NCSC Director of Operations Paul Chichester said:
“We fully support these sanctions, which send a strong message that that there will be consequences for those who target us or our allies in cyberspace.
“We will continue to work closely with our allies to counter malicious cyber activity from the GRU and others who would seek to do us harm.”
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November is CIPR Month in US

Cyber Security CII sector, Health & Social Care, Industry News, Power/Energy/Oil & Gas sector, Telecomms sector, Transport sector, University/Research/Academia sector, Water sector
Under leadership from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Protection & Programs Directorate (NPPD) and partnership with InfraGardNCR, November is designated as National Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month.
NCISRM builds awareness and appreciation of the importance of critical infrastructure and reaffirms the nationwide commitment to keep our critical infrastructure and our communities safe and secure. Securing the nation's infrastructure, which includes both the physical facilities that supply our communities with goods and services, like water, transportation, and fuel, and the communication and cyber technology that connects people and supports the critical infrastructure systems we rely on daily, is a national priority that requires planning and coordination across the whole community.​
In November, NCISRM efforts will focus on bringing stakeholders together to foster trusted relationships, providing timely and relevant resources to mitigate vulnerabilities, and raise awareness around the role of our supply chain in protecting critical infrastructure.
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Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Europe Call for Papers - Deadline 30th November 2020

Industry News
The Conference Advisory Committee is currently inviting abstracts for consideration for the 2021 conference programme.
Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Europe 2021 will take place in Bucharest, Romania on 11th-13th May 2021, supported by The National Institute for Research & Development in Informatics (ICI Bucharest), under the coordination of the Ministry of Communications and Information Society and brings together leading stakeholders from industry, operators, agencies and governments to debate and collaborate on securing Europe’s critical infrastructure.
The unique two-track conference programme delivered a leading line up of international experts to discuss securing Europe’s critical infrastructure and major venues, from both physical and cyber perspectives.
Critical Infrastructure Protection
With much focus on convergence, the CIP track of the programme delivers discussions to review the potential threats to critical infrastructure, smart construction and building in security resilience, and a focus on ‘Transport, Energy & Telecomms Infrastructure’, three key elements of a countries economic activity.
Critical Information Infrastructure Protection / Cyber Security
With the ever increasing threat from cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, the information and data stored and used by CNI systems and operators can be more crucial than the system itself. CIIP is becoming ever more important as part of the cyber security strategy of an organisation or CNI operator.
With a unique conference programme set-up, providing enhanced opportunities for discussions between the physical infrastructure and cyber security, who need to work together to mitigate threats and attacks in our combined plenary sessions, as well as focussed discussions within each discipline in the individual CIP and CIIP tracks.
The Conference Advisory Committee is now accepting abstracts for consideration for inclusion in the 2021 conference programme. If you are interested in presenting at Critical Infrastructure Protection & Resilience Europe and have an interesting paper within the topic guidelines below, you are invited to submit your abstract for consideration by the conference committee by submitting an abstract of approx 250 words.
For fuerther details visit www.cipre-expo.com/
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NCSC CNI Hub goes live

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News
Deborah Petterson, Deputy Director of the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK, has introduced a dedicated resource for UK Critical National Infrastructure.
Sometimes, Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) is taken for granted. The feeling seems to be that essential services, like telecoms, water, or energy 'just happen'. That's fine, but this isn't the way it works. It takes a huge effort to keep the water, electricity and information flowing.
The current pandemic has brought national infrastructure into focus.
The industry has been discussing supply chains, transport infrastructure, critical dependencies, and the unwanted attention from our adversaries, on the industries supporting our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NCSC's new CNI Hub, will help support service providers in raising their resilience and defending against cyber attacks.
The new CNI Hub will provide several new features which will be of direct and immediate benefit to those involved with UK CNI:
- highlighted advice and guidance that is particularly relevant to the CNI
- events that will be of interest to CNI
- a new home for the NCSC’s Cyber Assessment Framework, which is a key tool for many UK CNI cyber security regulators
- a new way to view the NCSC’s assured products and services to support regulatory approaches
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North Korean Malicious Cyber Activity

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA),  the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the U.S. Cyber Command Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) identified tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) group Kimsuky to gain intelligence on various topics of interest to the North Korean government. The U.S. Government refers to malicious cyber activity by the North Korean government as HIDDEN COBRA.
Kimsuky is engaged in ongoing cyber operations against worldwide targets to gain intelligence for North Korea, specifically on foreign policy and national security issues related to the Korean peninsula, nuclear policy, and sanctions. CISA, FBI, and CNMF recommend individuals and organizations within commercial sector businesses increase their defenses and adopt a heightened state of awareness.
The information contained in the alerts and MARs listed below is the result of analytic efforts between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide technical details on the tools and infrastructure used by cyber actors of the North Korean government. Each MAR includes malware descriptions, suggested response actions, and recommended mitigation techniques.
Users or administrators should flag activity associated with the malware and report the activity to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) or the FBI Cyber Watch (CyWatch), and give the activity the highest priority for enhanced mitigation. The U.S. Government refers to the malicious cyber activity by the North Korean government as HIDDEN COBRA.
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Hurricane Zeta makes landfall on Louisiana Coast

Industry News, Power/Energy/Oil & Gas sector, Telecomms sector, Transport sector, Water sector
Hurricane Zeta made landfall in southeastern Louisiana as a Category 2 storm, tearing into coastal communities with heavy rain and wind, and leaving hundreds of thousands without power, and threatening other critical infrastructure systems.
Almost 350,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana are already without power, with some coastal roads under water.
The number of people being left in the dark due to Zeta's strong winds continues to climb. More than 1.3 million customers are without power across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, according to PowerOutage.us. These numbers are likely to continue to climb as Zeta charges northeastward at a staggering 39 mph.
The most dangerous storm surge is expected to the east of New Orleans, with 6 to 9 feet (1.8 to 2.7 meters) of surge likely between the Pearl River on the Louisiana-Mississippi border and Dauphin Island, Alabama. The storm surge around New Orleans itself is forecast only 1 to 2 feet lower, and is still very dangerous. At least 1 to 3 feet (30 to 90 centimeters) of surge is likely across a region stretching from the central Louisiana coast to Yankeetown, Florida.
Zeta is expected to move fast across the U.S., bringing damaging wind, dumping rain and triggering floods across Mississippi, Alabama, northern Georgia, the Carolinas and southeastern Virginia. Powerful wind is likely across the southern Appalachians, the NHC wrote.
It's not yet November and Zeta is already the 27th Atlantic tropical cyclone of 2020, nearing the record of 28 set in 2005.
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