Assignment Task: Provide additional insight and feedback to the two post below
(Landon)
In 2018, The Department of Homeland Security recognized the need for an organization to lead the national effort to protect our critical infrastructure. This led to establishing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), known as "the Nation's Risk Advisor." CISA's core mission is to lead Cybersecurity and infrastructure security programs, operations, and policy through its crucial mission areas: Cybersecurity, infrastructure security, and emergency communications. One of CISA's four primary goals is to collaborate with the public and private sectors to bolster critical infrastructure Cybersecurity and contribute to protecting the United States and its allies (CISA, 2021). As networked devices become more integrated into our lives and businesses, their vulnerabilities open up additional attack vectors for nation-states and foreign adversaries. CISA, with its unique and unparalleled capabilities, is the central coordinator for information sharing, planning, and response, working with strategic partners to achieve this shared goal. CISA's engagement with the global community is channeled through four lines of effort: operational cooperation, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, outreach, and shaping the policy environment. The Department of Homeland Security has leveraged crucial programs, such as Automated Indication Sharing (AIS) and the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN), to strengthen relationships. CISA's role is to foster a mutual understanding of the risks and sustainability of emerging threats to the cyber backbone and critical infrastructure assets between the public and private sectors. DHS exemplifies this by fostering cohesion with international communities on standards of best practices to manage new technologies that can potentially create negative impacts on the cyber community.
Reference:
CISA global: CISA. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA. (n.d.).
(Austin)
CISA was founded in November of 2018 according to CISA.gov, and their budget in 2023 is nearly three billion dollars, the reason I mention any of these statements is to question whether or not the organization is effective or not, and in short my current answer is 'Yes, but not at 100%'. The main reasons is this organization may have tons of money and over five years to be established and effective, but in terms of the speeds in the federal government this is all young and too soon to tell whether this organization is at near peak efficiency for 2.9 billion dollars (with a 'B'). First in 2020 CISA was responsible for discovering one of our nations worst breaches which was SolarWinds being nearly completely compromised. This however, also showed CISA's infancy which according to the DHS OIG Highlights (2023) "but the SolarWinds response revealed that CISA did not have adequate resources -backup communication systems, staff, or secure space -to effectively respond to threats." In this perfect example CISA may have been able to find and report the threat to our federal government, but the response was lackluster and didn't fit muster to pass for mission needs.
Reference: CISA Made Progress but Resources, Staffing, and Technology Challenges Hinder Cyber Threat Detection and Mitigation. (2023).