Cyber threats to critical infrastructure have gone from being something that you only see in action movies to something that now keeps many of us up at night, something with very real, dangerous and expensive impacts.
NTCA chose to dig in deep in this area on behalf of our member companies, knowing that small businesses have even more challenges with cybersecurity and cybersecurity resources than large corporations.
We established CyberShare: The Small Broadband Provider ISAC as a pilot program in 2019 when we realized that our members had a pain point in this area. Doing so meant that we were perfectly positioned to tailor notifications to small broadband providers and help them gain access to critical and timely information with our own Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC). Learn More About CyberShare.
I say all of that because last week, I had the opportunity to share more about NTCA's efforts in the cybersecurity space during a meeting with Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly.
If you're not living and breathing cyber issues all the time, you may be wondering what it is that CISA does. The newest federal agency on the block, CISA is the operational lead for federal cybersecurity and the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resiliency. That is a pretty hefty mission.
Given the weight that is on her shoulders on a daily basis, I expected the director to be very no nonsense and dour (I know, I may have been thinking stereotypically, but if I had to worry about cyber threats all day, I would certainly be dour!), but I will say that Easterly was anything but that. She was high energy and showed an enthusiasm for her mission and a great passion for our country. Easterly also showed a pretty wicked sense of humor, highlighted by a large plastic shark head with many pointy teeth prominently displayed in her office.
She was also genuinely interested in who NTCA members are and what they are doing to secure their networks and the networks they manage for their consumers. As we both pondered on why we only have 100 of our member companies engaged actively with us in CyberShare, we compared notes on the value that CISA has brought to our CyberShare Summits, regular participant meetings and more. I was sure to ask that the agency continue to host tabletop exercises for our membership, and I even asked if Easterly would bring some of the training down to the state level through our partnerships with state associations. Most importantly, we talked about how smaller companies have fewer resources and staff to devote to regulatory requirements and how we might thread that needle together.
We both talked really quickly so we could hit as many topics as possible, but it was nice to know that CISA headquarters is just down the street from us in Arlington, Va. I love when our partners are close because I'm always up for throwing on my tennis shoes and making my way over. In all seriousness, it’s important that we continue these conversations on behalf of rural broadband providers because we certainly know that China and other bad actors aren't taking any kind of break. On a final note, I know how much effort our NTCA and CyberShare teams put into their work, but it was so nice to hear about how much of an impact their work contributes to the effort to keep all of us safe.