Presenter: Information Sharing 2 2
and Analysis Centers, ISACS. 3 3
Information Sharing and Analysis Centers began back 4 4
in the 1990s as a form of a public-private partnership 5 5
here in the United States. 6 6
Now, for each critical industry, an ISAC was set up. 7 7
An ISAC is a not-for-profit group set up to share 8 8
sector specific threat intelligence 9 9
and security best practices among its members. 10 10
Now, these were set up here in the United States, 11 11
but over in the UK they have a similar thing known as CSIP, 12 12
which is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Partnership. 13 13
And this serves a similar purpose over there. 14 14
Now, as I said there is an ISAC 15 15
for many different industries. 16 16
For instance, there's one for critical infrastructure. 17 17
One for government. 18 18
One for healthcare. 19 19
One for financial. 20 20
And one for aviation. 21 21
These are the ones we're going to cover in this lesson 22 22
but there are many other ones out there. 23 23
For the exam you don't need to go too deep into an ISAC 24 24
just to know that they exist and the basics of them. 25 25
So let's talk about critical infrastructure first. 26 26
What is critical infrastructure? 27 27
Well, critical infrastructure is defined by the 28 28
Department of Homeland Security here in the United States. 29 29
They define it as any physical or virtual infrastructure 30 30
that is considered so vital to the United States 31 31
that their incapacitation or destruction would have 32 32
a debilitating effect on security, 33 33
national economic security, 34 34
national public health or safety, 35 35
or any combination of these. 36 36
Basically, these are really important things. 37 37
These include the chemical sector, 38 38
the commercial facility sector, 39 39
the communication sector, 40 40
the critical manufacturing sector, 41 41
the dam sector, 42 42
the defense industrial based sector, 43 43
the emergency services sector, 44 44
the energy sector, 45 45
the financial services sector, 46 46
food and agriculture sector, 47 47
government facility sector, 48 48
healthcare and public health sector, 49 49
information technology sector, 50 50
nuclear reactors, materials and waste sector, 51 51
transportation systems sector 52 52
and water and wastewater systems sector. 53 53
These are the 16 critical infrastructures that are listed 54 54
by the Department of Homeland Security. 55 55
Again, for the exam, you do not need to memorize 56 56
all 16 of these, but you should understand that 57 57
these are really important things 58 58
and we want to make sure they're secure. 59 59
And so as a cybersecurity analyst, there are a lot of 60 60
people working in these 16 sectors around the country. 61 61
Now, if you happen to be working for one of these 16 sectors 62 62
you're probably going to be dealing with a lot of ICS, SCADA 63 63
and embedded systems because these are a main focus within 64 64
critical infrastructure and therefore the threats against 65 65
them are a big concern for you as a cybersecurity analyst. 66 66
The next ISAC we want to talk about is the government. 67 67
Now, the government has their own, 68 68
and we're not talking about the federal government here. 69 69
Instead, this government ISAC is focused on serving 70 70
non-federal governments in the United States. 71 71
Such as the state, local, tribal 72 72
and territorial governments. 73 73
For example, my company is based out of Puerto Rico 74 74
which is a territory of the United States. 75 75
So our government is a territorial government and they work 76 76
as part of this ISAC with the federal government in this 77 77
public-private partnership to make sure they're 78 78
being served and they understand what threats are 79 79
against their government. 80 80
The next ISAC we're going to talk about is healthcare. 81 81
This ISAC serves healthcare providers that are often 82 82
targets of criminals who are seeking to blackmail them 83 83
or looking for ransom opportunities by compromising 84 84
patient data records or interfering with medical devices. 85 85
As you saw earlier, healthcare is considered one of the 86 86
critical infrastructures inside this country. 87 87
But then we have this separate ISAC here to help 88 88
support healthcare providers directly. 89 89
Next, we have financial and this serves the financial sector 90 90
to prevent fraud and extortion of both the consumer 91 91
and the financial institutions. 92 92
For example, we want to make sure we're getting information 93 93
about anybody who's trying to affect a major trading 94 94
platform like the NASDAQ or the stock market 95 95
or somebody who might be able to go after ATMs 96 96
to have them give out money for free. 97 97
All of these could pose a national security risk 98 98
or an economic risk to our country. 99 99
And finally, we have aviation. 100 100
Aviation is focused on serving the aviation industry 101 101
to prevent fraud, terrorism, service disruptions 102 102
and unsafe operations of air traffic control systems. 103 103
Again, this is an area we don't want to have problems in 104 104
because if somebody could take over the air traffic 105 105
control system they could start crashing planes 106 106
into each other and that would be a really bad day for us. 107 107
So obviously these are things that we have to worry about 108 108
and so there's an ISAC set up to help support the 109 109
aviation industry in the fight against this.