Stakeholder Base Actively Sharing Information Propels Q2 Growth

WILMINGTON, DELEWARE, UNITED STATES, June 27, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Maritime Transportation System Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MTS-ISAC) has been formally accepted into the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Information Sharing and Collaboration Program (CISCP). This new partnership will link the MTS-ISAC’s maritime critical infrastructure stakeholders with CISCP’s existing public-private partnerships. As part of CISCP, the MTS-ISAC community will be provided additional valuable opportunities for analyst-to-analyst collaboration, operational analysis, and information exchange.

“I am impressed with the insightfully envisioned concept of the Maritime Transportation System ISAC,” offers Carlos Kizzee, current Vice President of Intelligence for the Retail & Hospitality ISAC and former Department of Homeland Security Deputy Director, Stakeholder Engagement and Cyber Infrastructure Resilience. “Their community organizational model is designed to unite, empower and collectively align participants (some of which have maintained informal relationships for years) within a centrally coordinated and well-supported national ISAC organization. They are institutionalizing a focused mission objective in a brilliant model of critical infrastructure security and resilience coordination to deepen the relationships and interconnections that are essential for effective port operations. Leveraging and enhancing existing port relationships and circles of trust within a supportive and collaborative ISAC umbrella framework will effectively promote improved community information sharing.”

Scott Dickerson, MTS-ISAC’s Executive Director, adds, “Our founders are maritime critical infrastructure stakeholders who believe that actionable intelligence collated from trusted private and public sector partner shares could provide the early warning needed to protect their organizations from incidents. While the MTS-ISAC has already benefited from bi-lateral information sharing partnerships with other ISACs, we are thrilled to join the larger CISCP community and be an active participant alongside fellow ISACs with DHS. We are grateful to DHS for welcoming the MTS-ISAC into the CISCP community and look forward to further developing productive partnerships that will help address cybersecurity risks across the critical infrastructure sectors.”

In addition to joining the CISCP community, the MTS-ISAC is also excited to name three additional board members: Matson Navigation Company, the Port of Stockton and the Virginia Port Authority. “Being able to interact directly with my peers across the maritime community to discuss and shape our information sharing mechanisms is incredibly powerful,” states Sean Walsh, Matson’s Director of Information Security. “We’re leveraging the collective knowledge, experience, and capabilities of this community to gain a more complete understanding of the threats the industry is facing.”

Information sharing within the maritime community has been thriving under the MTS-ISAC model. Since its inception, the number of organizations participating in the MTS-ISAC has quickly doubled and the community is actively sharing cybersecurity information in a timely manner. Furthermore, the MTS-ISAC is issuing regular TLP-GREEN advisories to trusted maritime stakeholders and is holding regular webinars to raise awareness on a variety of maritime cybersecurity topics, including recent informational webinars on protecting GPS and the USCG’s NVIC 01-20.

About CISCP: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber Information Sharing and Collaboration Program (CISCP) enables actionable, relevant, and timely unclassified information exchange through trusted public-private partnerships across all critical infrastructure (CI) sectors. CISCP fosters this collaboration by leveraging the depth and breadth of DHS cybersecurity capabilities within a focused operational context. Through analyst-to-analyst sharing of threat and vulnerability information, CISCP helps partners manage cybersecurity risks and enhances our collective ability to proactively detect, prevent, mitigate, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity incidents. CISCP's overall objective is to build cybersecurity resiliency and to harden the defenses of the United States and its strategic partners. For more information, visit https://www.cisa.gov/ciscp

About MTS-ISAC: The Maritime Transportation System Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MTS-ISAC) promotes and facilitates maritime cybersecurity information sharing, awareness, training and collaboration efforts between private and public sector stakeholders. Their mission is to effectively reduce cyber risk across the entire MTS community through improved identification, protection, detection, response, and recovery efforts. For more information, visit https://www.mtsisac.org/

Contacts:
Maritime Transportation System ISAC
https://www.mtsisac.org/contact
#mtsisac

Scott Dickerson
MTS-ISAC
+1 703-577-8755
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