CISA Urged to Create Physical Venues for Government-Industry Cybersecurity Collaboration

A Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency advisory committee has approved three recommendations to CISA Director Jen Easterly on improving the operations of the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative program between the government and private sectors. Receiving the committee’s report in a meeting Wednesday, Easterly said she welcomed the proposals, CyberScoop reported.

One of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee’s suggestions calls for establishing physical venues for JCDC operations on potential or active cyberthreats.

According to Ron Green, chair of the subcommittee that produced the recommendations, their resource persons on the report suggested that personal meetings on cyber defense would be more collaborative than virtual conferences. The report further cites the clarity and transparency benefits of formalizing the JCDC structure and participation through physical collaboration venues.

Another committee recommendation urges CISA to connect potential partners in a “Smart Rolodex,” a group from the public and private sectors that would proactively coordinate collective cyber defense capabilities. 

Congress authorized CISA to establish the JCDC in 2021. In February 2022, cybersecurity experts said in a congressional hearing that the private-public group played a key role in mitigating the vulnerability of Log4j, an open-source Apache logging framework.