Cybersecurity upgrades

Neutralizing China’s Advanced Persistent Threat Listed Among CISA’s 2024 JCDC Priorities, Deputy Director Says

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s 2024 Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative priorities include defending against advanced persistent threats, particularly countering the cyberattacks of groups linked with China.

Clayton Romans, CISA associate director, wrote in a blog post that the agency’s focus on APT campaigns supports the JCDC’s efforts to thwart threats targeting critical U.S. infrastructures. According to Romans, CISA’s 2024 priorities consider JCDC not as an organization but a partnership between government and industry “to drive positive change” for U.S. cybersecurity, CISA said Monday.

The 2024 JCDC Priorities CISA published named three JCDC focus areas, with APT actors first among them. CISA’s priorities to tackle APT include working with interagency and industry partners on readiness and response measures against cyberattacks using tactics like living off the land techniques, Romans said.

In the two other focus areas, the priorities revolve around raising critical U.S. infrastructures’ cybersecurity baseline and anticipating emerging technologies and their associated risks.

The action steps for boosting the cybersecurity baseline include updating CISA’s National Cyber Incident Response Plan. The agency will also continue to publish its Secure by Design Alert series initiated in 2023 to uncover risks due to recurring cybersecurity system defects.