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Volume 23 — Issue 8 | February 23, 2023

NIOSH requests input on health surveillance of public safety workers

The National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) is a partnership program led by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to stimulate innovative research and improved workplace practices.

NORA’s Public Safety Sector (PSS) Council focuses exclusively on the health and safety needs of public safety workers, including structural firefighters, wildland firefighters, law enforcement and corrections officers, emergency medical services providers, and public safety (911) telecommunicators. This diverse sector includes workers who have some of the most dangerous jobs.

NORA’s PSS Council held a meeting in October 2022 focused on the state of health surveillance across the public safety sector. Surveillance is the cornerstone of public health practice and data collected through occupational safety and health (OSH) surveillance systems can improve understanding of occupational exposures, injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. This improved understanding can inform injury prevention and intervention efforts.

During the October 2022 meeting, the PSS Council discussed current surveillance systems for the public safety workforce. Some examples of existing systems that provide OSH surveillance capabilities include the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Office of Emergency Medical Services’ National EMS Information System (NEMSIS) and the U.S. Fire Administration’s (USFA’s) National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). Additionally, NIOSH is working to help address cancer in firefighters through the development of a National Firefighter Registry (NFR).

The PSS Council discussed gaps in existing systems, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration to improve safety and health surveillance for public safety worker populations.

A Feb. 22 NIOSH Science Blog summarizes the outcomes of the NORA PSS Council’s October 2022 meeting and requests the following input from the public safety community:

• Are you or your organization involved in collecting data on any first responder worker populations that may fill existing knowledge gaps? If so, please describe your current efforts and provide a point of contact.
• Are you interested in assisting any of the agencies currently involved in OSH surveillance for the public safety sector in expanding surveillance of first responder worker populations? If so, who would you be interested in connecting with and how would you see yourself contributing?

If you are interested in contributing information or collaborating in this initiative, see NIOSH’s blog to learn more about the NORA PSS Council’s mission and how to share your responses to the questions above.

(Source: NIOSH)

Highlights

NIOSH requests input on health surveillance of public safety workers

International Code Council publishes guidance on energy storage systems

Earthquake resources from NIEHS’ Disaster Research Response Program

Webinar: Update from the National 911 Program

Cyber Threats

The U.S. Fire Administration operates the Emergency Management and Response – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC).

For information regarding the EMR-ISAC visit www.usfa.dhs.gov/emr-isac or contact the EMR-ISAC office at: (301) 447-1325 and/or fema-emr-isac@fema.dhs.gov.

International Code Council publishes guidance on energy storage systems

In the past few years, energy storage systems (ESS) have gained global attention as a key enabling technology to facilitate the shift to renewable energy sources for an ever-greater share of our electricity needs.

Along with these shifts to renewable energy sources and the increased reliance on ESS to aid in this transition, there is an increased need for information on how to safely plan, design, build, and permit ESS in the built environment.

The International Code Council (ICC) and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) recently released a free resource, entitled Energy Storage Systems: Based on the IBC, IFC, IRC and NEC.

The goal of this 90-page guide is to provide a handy reference on ESS technologies for building officials, emergency services, planners, architects, and engineers.

The term ESS encapsulates a tremendous range of technologies, from flywheels to flow batteries. Many of these technologies will be unfamiliar to building safety and design professionals, and codes and standards are evolving quickly to keep up with advances in these technologies.

The guide covers:

• Utility-scale and large commercial-scale ESS projects.
• Residential and small commercial-scale ESS projects.
• Fire and explosion risk in battery-based ESS.
• Key standards for ESS equipment and installations.
• Applicable codes.
• Reviewing and inspecting techniques for ESS.

Since lithium-ion battery-based ESS currently dominate the global market, representing over 90% of all new energy storage capacity installed, much of the guide focuses on this group of technologies. Printable checklists for document reviews and inspections are also included in the last section.

The Energy Storage Systems guide was developed with funding support from the Department of Energy. It is available on IREC’s Clean Energy Clearinghouse free of charge as a downloadable PDF. To learn more, see the ICC’s news release.

(Sources: ICC, IREC)

Earthquake resources from NIEHS’ Disaster Research Response Program

The devastation in Türkiye and Syria from the massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6 and 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Türkiye on Feb. 20 is a sobering reminder of just how destructive earthquakes can be. The death toll has passed 41,000 and continues to rise. Tens of thousands are injured and hundreds of thousands displaced. This natural disaster is now a humanitarian crisis with a global response to bring humanitarian aid to the region.

In the continental United States, Alaska and California have the most earthquakes and California experiences more damage from earthquakes than any other state. But earthquakes are a hazard in many parts of the U.S. The Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC) reports that about 200 earthquakes occur in the central U.S. every year. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that nearly half of all Americans live in areas with some potential for damaging earthquakes. Since earthquakes often strike with very little warning, increasing resilience and preparedness for these events is critical.

February is Earthquake Awareness Month. This month, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program is highlighting resources for earthquakes in its Resources Portal. Emergency and disaster managers, planners, and public health officials can use these research tools to gather information to aid in decision making and increase their communities’ resilience to earthquakes.

Within the earthquake resources collection in the DR2 portal are several survey instruments and data collection tools. For example, the ShakeAlert Baseline Survey can help communities evaluate readiness for and attitudes toward earthquakes and earthquake early warning on the U.S. West Coast. The ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning and Schools in the United States is an online survey used to gather perceptions and/or adoption of earthquake early warning systems in schools. Historic earthquake research materials are available with information on knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of individuals during and immediately after past earthquakes. Several additional data collection tools can be adapted to gather information on preparedness for earthquakes and to assess the impact of earthquakes on public health.

NIEHS’ DR2 Program addresses the need for clinical research in disasters and as part of public health emergency response. It provides access to a curated set of data collection tools, research protocols, implementation guidance, training and workshops, disaster research news, and events. DR2 collects information and experiences from a broad spectrum of partners, both government and private sector, to create a robust resource that will assist public health response to future environmental disasters.

(Sources: NIEHS, CUSEC)

Webinar: Update from the National 911 Program

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA’s) National 911 Program will host a webinar providing an update on its innovative nationwide programs supporting the 911 community on Tuesday, March 14, 2023, at 12 p.m. EDT.

During this webinar, leaders of the National 911 Program will provide updates on several projects.

• The 911 DataPath Pilot Project. What does a nationally uniform 911 data system look like? The 911 DataPath Strategic Plan describes the characteristics of an ideal future environment where data can be exchanged on a scheduled, ad hoc or near real-time basis. This project is an endeavor to develop a nationally uniform framework for collecting and sharing standardized data.
• The CAD Interoperability Assessment Project and the GIS Assessment Project. Learn about the collaboration with national stakeholders and industry experts to identify and meet the challenges on these two major undertakings. The CAD Interoperability Assessment Project attempts to fully understand the disparate nature of CAD systems to develop solutions that achieve interoperability. The GIS Assessment Project is dedicated to creating an interoperable, nationwide GIS system to meet the needs of NG911, a key element of advancing 911 systems.
• Telecommunicator Job Reclassification. Hear the highlights on new efforts to have telecommunicators recognized as first responders. Presenters will discuss how the National 911 Program’s partnerships with local and national organizations have led to the creation of the four-part Public Safety Telecommunicator Reclassification toolkit, designed to help emergency communication centers take an active role in modifying the classification of telecommunicators.

This webinar is part of the National 911 Program’s State of 911 Webinar Series. The series is designed to provide useful information for the 911 stakeholder community about federal and state participation in the planning, design, and implementation of Next Generation 911, or NG911 systems. It includes real experiences from leaders utilizing these processes throughout the country.

Advanced registration is required to attend this webinar. The recording and slide deck from every webinar in the series is available online. For information about future webinars, be sure to sign up for email alerts.

(Source: National 911 Program)

Cyber Incident Assistance

MS-ISAC
SOC@cisecurity.org
1-866-787-4722

IdentityTheft.gov

IC3

Cybercrime Support Network

General Information

StopRansomware.gov

CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog

FTC scam list

CISA alerts

Law Enforcement Cyber Center

TLP Information

HC3: Sector Alert - Clop Allegedly Targets Healthcare Industry in Data Breach

Russia-linked ransomware group Clop reportedly took responsibility for a mass attack on more than 130 organizations, including those in the healthcare industry, using a zero-day vulnerability in secure file transfer software GoAnywhere MFT. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the GoAnywhere flaw (CVE-2023-0669) to its public catalog of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities. This Sector Alert follows previous HC3 Analyst Notes on Clop (CLOP Poses Ongoing Risk to HPH Organizations and CLOP Ransomware) and provides an update on its recent attack, potential new tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), and recommendations to detect and protect against ransomware attacks.

Read the full Sector Alert from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3)

(Source: HHS HC3)

Ransomware attack pushes city of Oakland into state of emergency

The city of Oakland, California issued a local state of emergency late Tuesday, Feb. 14, as a result of the ongoing impact following a ransomware attack that first hit city IT systems on Wednesday, Feb. 8. According to an update, the city “continues to experience a network outage that has left several non-emergency systems including phone lines within the City of Oakland impacted or offline.” While voicemail and other non-emergency services were disrupted or taken offline, no critical or emergency services such as 911 and fire departments have been impacted.

(Source: Security Week)

Sensitive US military emails spill online

The U.S. Department of Defense secured an exposed server on Monday, Feb. 20, that was spilling internal U.S. military emails to the open internet for the past two weeks. The exposed server was hosted on Microsoft’s Azure government cloud for Department of Defense customers, which uses servers that are physically separated from other commercial customers and as such can be used to share sensitive but unclassified government data. A misconfiguration left the server without a password, allowing anyone on the internet access to the sensitive mailbox data inside using only a web browser, just by knowing its IP address.

(Source: TechCrunch)

Vishing and smishing: What you need to know

According to the Verizon 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, 82% of breaches involved the human element, including social engineering attacks, errors, and misuse.

Phishing e-mails continue to be one of the most popular methods of attack used by cybercriminals, but they are not the only method. See the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center’s (MS-ISAC’s) Cybersecurity Tips newsletter article, Vishing and Smishing: What You Need to Know, to review some additional types of social engineering attacks and what you can do to protect yourself.

(Source: MS-ISAC)

NSA releases Best Practices for Securing Your Home Network

The National Security Agency (NSA) released Best Practices for Securing Your Home Network Cybersecurity Information Sheet (CSI) on Feb. 22 to help teleworkers protect their home networks from malicious cyber actors. The guide includes recommendations for securing routing devices, implementing wireless network segmentation, ensuring confidentiality during telework, and more. Spearphishing, malicious ads, email attachments, and untrusted applications can present concerns for home internet users. NSA not only shows teleworkers how to secure their home networks, but also provides tips for staying safe online.

Read the full report on NSA’s website. Visit NSA’s library for more cybersecurity information and technical guidance.

(Source: NSA)

The InfoGram is distributed weekly to provide members of the Emergency Services Sector with information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures.

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