CISA Director Announces at Black Hat Computer Security Conference the Formation of a New Collaborative Cyber Defense Center

PH Privacy was at this year’s Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas (the sacrifices we make…).  Yesterday at the conference, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) Jen Easterly announced the formation of new collaborative cyber defense center, the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (“JCDC”). CISA is a federal agency formed in 2018 to understand and manage cyber and physical risk to the United States critical infrastructure. Last month, Easterly assumed office as the director.

In her talk, Easterly pitched to the security researchers and hackers the value in partnering with CISA. (She also clarified the pronunciation of CISA – “sis-uh”). The JCDC will bring partners from private industry together with the partners in the federal government including the Defense Department, Intelligence Community, and Law Enforcement. The new collaborative will try to align the partners’ efforts to strengthen the United States’ cyber-defense activities. The JCDC aims to achieve this goal by sharing insights about the threat environment; developing whole-of-nation cyber-defense plans, including critical infrastructure; exercising the plans; and working together to implement the cyber-defense plans.

Easterly announced the inaugural partners for the JCDC include Crowdstrike, Palo Alto Networks, FireEye, Microsoft, Google, AWS, AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen. She invited other companies to join the JCDC.