Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month, Week 3 – A Collective Approach to Securing Public Places

As discussed in Security and Resilience Updates for the past few weeks (beginning with the October 31 Security and Resilience Update), November is Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month, a time intended to shine a light on the vital role that these systems and places play in keeping the nation and communities safe, secure, and prosperous. Each week of the month has its own theme; Week 3 is “Securing the American Democracy: Election security 2020.” While this is a very important topic, for this week WaterISAC would like to draw its members attention to a posting from last week by Assistant Director for Infrastructure Security Division Brian Harrell at the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In the posting, titled “A Collective Approach to Securing Public Places,” Harrell reminds his readers of the importance of a “whole-of-community” approach to preventing and mitigating the effects of attacks, particularly in public places. This approach advocates for every person in society playing some role in keeping their communities safe, which DHS seeks to enable by making available numerous resources that include proactive measures to help reduce risks of a successful attack and tools to help communities and organizations respond to an incident, mitigate consequences, and save lives. These resources include CISA’s active shooter preparedness products and tools, Hometown Security page, and Protective Security Advisor (PSA) program, among others discussed in the posting. Read the post at CISA.