Tag Archives: DHS

The Lesser Known Missions of Homeland Security

Posted on by

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 →

Department Spotlight: Department of Homeland Security

Posted on by

The mission of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may seem straightforward - protect the homeland - but in practice a lot goes into fulfilling that promise. DHS is an incredibly complex organization with a set of agencies that, while focused on the singular mission of keeping America safe, do so in incredibly diverse ways. The Department has laid out six core missions that all support the effort to secure the nation.

Recent efforts of DHS highlight their commitment to these goals. Continue reading →

Strengthening Cyber Resilience With Collaboration

Posted on by

Today's organizations know that stopping 100% of cyber-attacks is not a realistic goal. Rather, the focus has shifted to cyber resilience, "the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that use or are enabled by cyber resources."

A critical pillar in becoming resilient is communication and collaboration. The Cyber EO focused on improving the nation's cybersecurity and highlighted the need to improve collaboration with threat intelligence sharing between public and private organizations as well as the creation of cross-government cyber boards. In recent months, key strides have been made in facilitating information sharing around cyber best practices, resource availability, as well as process and policy. Continue reading →

Ensuring Equity in Disaster Response

Posted on by

Equity is highlighted in priority two of the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Delivering Excellent, Equitable, and Secure Federal Services and Customer Experience, and is a theme throughout all PMA priorities. Disaster response is possibly the most critical place to ensure equity. While a disaster does level the playing field in some ways-no matter how much money you have it won't stop a tornado from hitting your house-the recovery from disasters is not as fairly distributed.

A 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that disaster response is "uneven" across the country. The research found that small towns, rural and tribal areas, and underserved and disadvantaged communities have a hard time accessing federal disaster recovery assistance programs. Those that did access funds had difficulty achieving a full recovery with structures still damaged years later. A key to solving this gap? Data. Continue reading →

Zero Trust in Government Accelerates 0-60

Posted on by

Zero Trust is a logical evolution of security in a world where remote access to networks and applications is more common than being on-site with an organization's data center. From cloud applications to the explosion of remote work, the traditional "castle and moat approach" simply does not scale or protect networks that are constantly being accessed by outside users.

The Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity (Cyber EO) has a strong emphasis on moving government toward a Zero Trust approach for security. It laid out deadlines for agencies to submit plans for implementing Zero Trust architectures, holding organizations accountable for changing how they allow users to access their systems. Continue reading →