The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrasturcture Security Agency (CISA), an operational and support component of the Department of Homeland Security, defines 16 critical infrastructure sectors “whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.” A major challenge for CISA in securing the nation’s critical infrastructure is that much of the infrastructure is composed of assets whose security postures are under the control and authority of non-governmental organizations. How can CISA effectively enable these organizations to be as resilient as possible?
In this blog post, we:
- discuss how cybersecurity assessments can help critical infrastructure organizations improve their cybersecurity,
- describe a set of assessment tools developed by the SEI CERT Division that the U.S. government offers for free,
- show how use of these tools can help to create an ecosystem for reducing the nation’s cybersecurity risks.
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