CISA releases new strategy to improve industrial control system cybersecurity
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a strategy to strengthen and unify industrial control systems (ICS) cybersecurity for a more aligned, proactive and collaborative approach to protect the essential services Americans use every day.
The strategy, Securing Industrial Control Systems: A Unified Initiative is intended to help architects, owners and operators, vendors, integrators, researchers, and others in the ICS community build capabilities that lead to more secure ICS operations. Ultimately, it strives to move CISA and the ICS community beyond reactive measures to a more proactive ICS security focus.
“In recent years, we have seen industrial control systems around the world become a target for an increasing number of capable, imaginative adversaries aiming to disrupt essential services,” said Christopher Krebs, Director of CISA. “As attackers continue trying to exploit vulnerabilities in ICS, we need to make sure we’re staying ahead of them. Together with our partners in the ICS industry and the security community, this strategy will lead us to new, unified initiatives and security capabilities that will markedly improve the way we defend and secure ICS.”
Although ICS owners and operators manage their own security, CISA’s mission is to assist through delivery of a broad portfolio of ICS security products and services, especially when an exploitation may threaten people or property or undermines confidence in critical infrastructure safety and reliability.
The CISA ICS initiative is a five-year plan that builds on the collaborative work already done and the existing support CISA provides to the community. It also elevates ICS security as a priority within CISA, coalescing CISA’s organizational attention around the implementation of a unified, “One CISA” strategy. The initiative organizes our efforts around four guiding pillars:
Pillar 1: Ask more of the ICS Community, deliver more to them.
Pillar 2: Develop and utilize technology to mature collective ICS cyber defense.
Pillar 3: Build “deep data” capabilities to analyze and deliver information that the ICS community can use to disrupt the ICS cyber kill chain.
Pillar 4: Enable informed and proactive security investments by understanding and anticipating ICS risk.
The CISA ICS Strategy can be found at www.cisa.gov/ICS.