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Cyber analyst Elizabeth McCracken stressed the importance of the National Guard awareness of state and major urban fusion centers. As their name implies, fusion centers serve as focal points dedicated to receiving, analyzing and sharing “threat-related” information from a variety of sources.
“We have partners with law enforcement, public safety, critical infrastructure,” explained McCracken, who works as a lead cyber analyst with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, one of 78 fusion centers across the country. “If you’re seeing things that you can share information about that may impact them, we’re a good way to get that out.”
Fusion centers are owned by state and local governments, and operate with federal support, according to a 2012 Department of Homeland Security handout. The handout further reveals that their mission is to “provide multidisciplinary expertise and situational awareness to inform decision making at all levels of government.”
McCracken explained that The 9/11 Commission Report showed gaps in communication between different levels of government: Threat-related information from the federal government wasn’t getting to state and local agencies, and vice versa.
“Fusion centers were really seen as a way to bridge that gap as well as to do additional analysis,” McCracken said.
According to McCracken—who is participating in Exercise Cyber Shield 17, a National Guard cyberdefense training event in collaboration with the U.S. Army Reserve and several law-enforcement, intelligence and information technology organizations—the event is a good opportunity to spread the word.
“I’m here to learn more how we can better share information with the National Guard when it comes to cyber issues,” McCracken said. “I see this as an opportunity to figure out how we can do this better. Hopefully, what they can pull out of this is that we’re a resource that they can tap into for information sharing.”
Trooper 1st Class Derek Sentino, with the Louisiana State Police and the “LA-SAFE” Louisiana State Analytical Fusion Exchange, described the vast scope of fusion centers.
“The fusion center focuses on gangs, terrorist groups, sex-trafficking groups, extremist groups, any criminal activity you can think of,” Sentino said. “The fusion center collects information from different agencies around the state and around the country.”
McCracken and Sentino are participating in Cyber Shield 17 within the Fusion Cell, a group of fusion center members from around the country. Along with Fusion Cell work group leader Cori Pope, a State of North Carolina firefighter, they expressed agreement in the value of learning cyberdefense strategies so that they could apply them to their full-time roles.
“The cyber thing is still kind of new, but we have an analyst who monitors different threat levels in cyber, and that information is then passed to an investigator who vets the information,” Sentino explained. “These two weeks I’ve picked up on a lot of great investigative tools. It’s a good way to learn what to look for and how to process different information.”
Pope said the exercise prepares first responders for better collaboration, because the multi-agency diversity at Cyber Shield reflects the diversity of professionals that integrate to defend against a cyberattack.
“You definitely don’t want to learn who your partner is—or who to go to—during an event,” Pope stated. “We want to know who our partners are with, what resources you have and what resources I have, and how we can attack the problem together instead of finding out after the fact.”
McCracken expressed hope that improved collaboration will extend to guard and fusion center partnership.
“What I find most interesting is the opportunity to learn what you do, and for you guys to learn what we do, and figure ways that we can bridge and share information,” McCracken said.
McCracken described how the guard in her area interacts with her fusion center as an example of how other state and local fusion centers can help guard units.
“Our National Guard in our area will contact us and say: ‘We have a dignitary coming or we’re having this training in this area, do you have any threat information?’” McCracken said. “We’re another source for them for that information.”
McCracken’s call to action is for guardsmen to become familiar with their nearby fusion centers to potentially collaborate. Fusion center locations and contact information are available at http://www.dhs.gov/.
| Date Taken: | 05.02.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.02.2017 11:23 |
| Story ID: | 232264 |
| Location: | UT, US |
| Web Views: | 286 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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