The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and FEMA have jointly launched the ‘Shields Ready’ campaign to encourage the critical infrastructure community to focus on strengthening resilience.
Shields Ready defines resilience as the ability to prepare for, adapt to, withstand and rapidly recover from disruptions caused by changing conditions. Shields Ready focuses strategically on how to prepare critical infrastructure for a potential disruption and how to build more resilience into systems, facilities and processes by taking action before a crisis or incident even occurs.
Shields Ready complements CISA’s ‘Shields Up’ campaign, which encourages critical infrastructure stakeholders to take specific, time-sensitive actions that reduce risk in response to specific threat intelligence during cyberattacks, physical security threats, or natural disasters in response to specific threat intelligence. It also aligns with and complements FEMA’s Ready campaign.
The Shields Ready campaign, spearheaded by CISA and supported by FEMA, will ensure our nation’s critical infrastructure is better equipped and more resilient against all threats and hazards, ranging from cyberattacks to natural disasters. By working with our partners and providing them with the tools they need for more effective risk management and incident response, DHS is building on its critical safety and security mission and meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas.
The Shields Ready approach highlights how critical infrastructure entities and other organizations can ‘Resolve to be Resilient’. Entities should:
- Know Your Infrastructure and Dependencies. Organizations should identify their most critical systems and assets for their operations and understand their potential dependencies on other infrastructure systems that enable the continuity of their own operations.
- Assess Your Risks. Consider the full range of threats and hazards that could disrupt your organization’s infrastructure operations and evaluate specific vulnerabilities and consequences the threats and hazards could pose.
- Make Actionable Plans. Organizations should develop both a strategic risk management plan to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities identified as well as actionable incident response and recovery plans to help withstand disruptions and rapidly restore operations within minimal downtime.
- Measure Progress to Continuously Improve. Exercise incident response and recovery plans under realistic conditions and periodically evaluate and update strategic plans. An organization’s ability to prepare for and adapt to changing risk conditions starts with fostering a culture of continuous improvement, based on lessons learned from exercises and real-world incidents.
