CISA holds latest Cyber Storm

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) last week held the latest in its Cyber Storm series of national cyber exercises in collaboration with government, industry and international partners.

The exercise was designed to simulate the response to a cyber crisis impacting the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Around 2000 participants, including key members of the US energy, financial and communications sectors, took part in the three-day drill.

The biennial exercise assesses cybersecurity preparedness and examines participants’ incident response processes, procedures and information sharing, and allows players to simulate the discovery of and response to a widespread coordinated cyber attack.

Each Cyber Storm exercise builds on the conclusions of the previous one and is used to periodically evaluate progress made in the cyber response community in responding to issues uncovered in prior drills.

CISA Assistant Director for Infrastructure Security Brian Harrell said such exercises are becoming essential in the digital era.

“We’re more connected than ever, which means our nation’s critical infrastructure faces increased risks from cyber attacks,” he said.

“No one company or government agency can be expected to go it alone, which is why exercises like Cyber Storm bring everyone together to discuss and exercise how we would respond collectively to a cyber attack. Each Cyber Storm our coordination and capabilities get better, and this year was no different.”

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