{"id":18788,"date":"2020-01-17T19:40:18","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T19:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/01\/17\/worried-about-a-cyberattack-from-iran-heres-how-feds-prepare\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:53:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:53:21","slug":"worried-about-a-cyberattack-from-iran-heres-how-feds-prepare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/it-networks\/2020\/01\/17\/worried-about-a-cyberattack-from-iran-heres-how-feds-prepare\/","title":{"rendered":"Worried about a cyberattack from Iran? Here\u2019s how feds prepare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in early January, the United States opened the door for retaliation from a nation with well-known cyber capabilities. While military officials had to be ready for a kinetic response from Iran, civilian government leaders also had to ensure that their networks were ready to withstand any attack from Iran\u2019s cyber actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, behind closed doors, how do government leaders prepare for such an event?<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A half-dozen former federal chief information officers, department CIOs and CISOs described to Fifth Domain how a military strike on an advanced cyber actor, such as Iran, would change their day-to-day routines as the top cybersecurity and IT officials in government. Several of those interviewed coordinated the response to the breach of the Office of Personnel Management, disclosed in 2015, which ultimately resulted in more than 21 million stolen records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These officials described several ways government officials prepared: increasing information sharing, more frequently communicating with the Department of Homeland Security and the intelligence community, stepping up communication within agencies\u2019 cybersecurity components and reviewing disaster response and business continuity plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are on a sense of heightened alert,\u201d said former acting Federal CIO Lisa Schlosser, who was detailed to OPM in the aftermath of its data breach. She also served as CIO at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and CISO of the Department of Transportation before becoming federal deputy CIO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a DHS entity charged with protecting federal networks and critical infrastructure from cyberattacks, was on elevated alert in response to the strike. And that level upped again after the NSA outed a significant vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10 this week, a CISA official told Fifth Domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn response to some of the Iran activity, we did a lot of messaging out to our partners \u2014 sharing indicators of compromise, particularly some vulnerability information, and then we talked about it on our weekly [security operations center] call,\u201d said a CISA official, who requested anonymity to discuss communications between the agency and its partners. \u201cAround some of the other vulnerability information that\u2019s been going on, we sent out some personalized messages checking in to see what mitigation measures agencies have been put in place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CISA, which holds weekly calls with agencies\u2019 security operations centers and monthly calls with agency leaders across government, held calls with all of the organization\u2019s partners and managed \u201cmore frequent\u201d email traffic, including conversations about website defacements that showed pro-Iranian messages, the official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe, organizationally, had some calls where we addressed all of our partners,\u201d the CISA official said. \u201cSo we had multiple ones of [those] to keep our partners apprised of what we were monitoring, what we were seeing, what our thoughts were about the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official added, \u201ca lot of it was email coordination, exchange over our secure portal, and sharing some of that cybersecurity activity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strike on Iran prompted CISA Director Chris Krebs to tweet that organizations should \u201cbrush up\u201d on Iranian tactics, techniques and procedures. DHS later released a bulletin noting that there is \u201cno specific, credible threat.\u201d CISA then followed up again with a document instructing organizations<\/a> to up defensive measures through system backup, incident response plan reviews and reporting plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside heightened information sharing<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several former department cybersecurity officials said that increased risk means more communication between department CISOs and CIOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere would be over-reporting; there will be more frequent communication because everything is in such a fluid state, things are so dynamic, just to make sure that we\u2019re on the same page \u2026 I [as CISO] would definitely be reporting up more frequently,\u201d said Steve Grewal, who served separately as CISO and CIO at the Department of Education between 2012 and 2016. \u201cAs the CIO \u2026 I would want reporting coming into me maybe every couple hours, or maybe every hour, depending on what we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heightened information sharing would also include communicating with departments that have connected programs. For example, Grewal said, if an Education Department system links to a high-value asset at the IRS or Department of Treasury, leaders at those agencies need to talk more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that situation, personal relationships can be a critical avenue to information sharing. CISOs and CIOs who have built a personal rapport will ask each other what sort of threats or information they are seeing at their agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI certainly adopted that as a practice to have a handful of relationships where I informally compared notes and also wanted to make that if there was spillage or there was transfer of risk as a result of those technical relationships and we have that communication line open outside of what DHS or OMB would be coordinating,\u201d said Grewal, who now serves as Cohesity\u2019s CTO of federal business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given Iran\u2019s ability to disrupt oil and gas and target of industrial control systems, the Department of Energy would need to increase communication industry stakeholders, like organizations dedicated to protecting the power grid, former federal CISO Greg Touhill said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m the CISO at Energy, I\u2019m going to get in contact with the ISACs [Information Sharing and Analysis Center] of the different energy sectors \u2026 if I\u2019m a sector specific agency, I\u2019m going to share the same message [with] the sector that I\u2019m telling my folks,\u201d said Touhill, now president of Cyxtera Federal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Scott, a former federal CIO and Touhill\u2019s former boss, said he would expect more daily briefings with the federal CISO. He also said that the federal CISO would be the busiest person in the Office of Management and Budget because the officeholder has to \u201cmake sense of all the information that\u2019s coming in [and] sort out what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon Szykman, who served as the Department of Commerce\u2019s CIO from 2010 to 2014, told Fifth Domain that he would have to share his department\u2019s cybersecurity posture up to the deputy secretary and secretary level because those officials want to \u201cunderstand the risks that they may be operating under that they may not be aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How agencies should respond<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touhill said the drone strike would\u2019ve triggered him to call a CISO meeting the following morning, adding that he would direct federal agencies to scan their external and internal systems for vulnerabilities and take corrective action where necessary. Departments, he said, scan their networks on set cycles \u2014 though they may not do it consistently enough \u2014 and adversaries will track those cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn times of heightened alerts, [that\u2019s] a good time to go scan out of cycle,\u201d said Touhill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several former department CIOs said they would also review business continuity plans and ensure the security of high-value assets, the most critical data that often includes personally identifiable information or classified data. Because retaliation might not be immediate, agency leaders will need to be alert for an extended period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsent a known threat, typically it really becomes an issue of preparation and heightened vigilance,\u201d said Szykman, now managing director and chief technology officer of Attain\u2019s federal services division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such moments, Szykman said that the first thing he would do when he arrived in the office the day following a strike would be to check in with the department\u2019s security operations center (SOC) to see if anything occurred over night. Then he would check in with the department\u2019s help desk to see if any incidents were reported, a necessary step because many end users don\u2019t know how to send incident information to the SOC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn a normal day, you just assume everything is fine unless you hear otherwise,\u201d Szykman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, he would check the threat-reporting information coming from the DHS and other agencies, as well as looking for network scanning or unusual activity that could indicate a cyberattack may be coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationship between agencies<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DHS offers several feeds to civilian agencies that contain threat information from commercial threat intelligence companies, ISACs, the intelligence community and other industry partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DHS, of course, isn\u2019t solely responsible for collecting information. That department relies on partners in the intelligence community to send threat information for wider distribution to the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was the federal CISO, Touhill said he would regularly communicate with the intelligence community, asking various agencies for information the IC is learning through different collection methods such as human, signals and open source intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One group, the NSA\u2019s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center, plays an integral role in federal cybersecurity by monitoring worldwide networks to gather threat information and distributing subsequent reports to DHS, FBI and other government. The reports can be classified or unclassified to be available outside U.S. government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey do a really good job putting together recommended mitigations,\u201d said former NSA CISO Chris Kubic, now CISO of Fidelis Cybersecurity. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly guidance out there to the federal CISOs to be able to understand what they should be prioritizing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, NSA has employees detailed to civilian agencies to further its reach and create more channels to gather threat information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou cannot over-communicate in a situation like this,\u201d said Schlosser.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifth Domain asked former top cybersecurity professionals from top civilian government departments how they prepared for heightened cybersecurity risk. 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