Tag Archives: Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency

How Cyber Basics Make a Big Impact

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October is a fitting month for cybersecurity awareness. Phishing emails can be even more deceptive than a convincing costume and ransomware attacks can feel like a jump scare in a horror movie. Each year, the National Cybersecurity Alliance and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security spearhead an educational campaign to ensure everyone knows their role in protecting the vast amounts of online data we depend on for daily life.

The 2025 theme is "Stay Safe Online" with a focus on four key steps everyone can take to improve online safety:

  • Use strong passwords and a password manager
  • Turn on multifactor authentication
  • Recognize and report scams
  • Update your software

These tactics are important at a personal as well as enterprise level. Agencies across government have taken these best practices and implemented new security measures to protect data. Continue reading →

The Lesser Known Missions of Homeland Security

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The mission of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is widely understood, "to safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values." However, in carrying out this mission, DHS touches a number of areas that may not seem intuitively tied to homeland defense but are nonetheless critical challenges facing the nation as well as agencies across government.

Artificial Intelligence

DHS has a key role in securing the homeland from cyber threats. The department's Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the operational lead for federal cybersecurity and the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience. With this responsibility, CISA and other DHS agencies play a key role in shaping policy and guidance around emerging technology use. Today, they are keenly focused on helping agencies safely and ethically use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve mission effectiveness.

DHS is leading by example. AI is currently being used to aid border-patrol efforts, combat drug trafficking, and create age-progression estimations of missing children. While implementing AI itself, DHS is also focused on how adversaries may use AI and creating ways to defend against the technology being used to spread disinformation, create more advanced cyber attacks, or speed the development of weapons. Continue reading →