The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is updating the National Cyber Incident Response Plan (NCIRP) 2024, the primary strategic framework for coordinating with the federal sector in response to significant cyber incidents.
In the spirit of whole of community response and collaborative cyber defense, CISA is inviting stakeholders from across public and private sectors, academia, and individual researchers, and experts in cybersecurity and response, to attend a series of three virtual NCIRP 2024 listening sessions.
The intent of these sessions is to hear feedback about the existing NCIRP and any experience with incident response coordination with the federal government more broadly. A draft of the NCIRP 2024 is being prepared and will be posted to CISA’s NCIRP webpage for public comment this summer. Perspectives gathered during the listening sessions will inform the update which will be published at the end of calendar year 2024.
CISA is releasing a newsletter series, New and Noteworthy, to support the NCIRP 2024 update. Each newsletter will keep the public informed on planning processes, plan development, and stakeholder engagement efforts in support of the NCIRP 2024.
The first listening session was held on May 8, 2024. During this session, CISA addressed the following topics:
- Overview of the NCIRP and the process for updating the 2024 Plan.
- The role of Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs).
- The integration of state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) entities into cyber incident response.
- The role of state fusion centers in the information sharing process
- Cyber incident reporting, specifically, how to define who an “asset owner” is and who should be contacted during a significant cyber incident.
CISA has just announced its second listening session, which will be held on Thursday, June 27, 2024, from 1-2 p.m. EDT. See CISA’s second issue of New and Noteworthy to learn more and register.
For more information on the NCIRP, visit CISA’s NCIRP page.
(Source: CISA)
In recent years, wildland fires have increased in number of fires per year, severity, and duration of each event.
All fires generate smoke pollution, but large landscape and wildland fires often cause episodes of severely degraded air quality that last for days, weeks, or months. The smoke produced from wildland fires can have a significant negative impact on ambient air quality, which can negatively impact health.
Early in 2020, EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) and Office of Research and Development (ORD) worked with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to propose that ASHRAE (formerly the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) develop a guideline for protecting building occupants from smoke during wildfire and prescribed burn events.
ASHRAE formed its Guideline Project Committee (GPC) 44 in mid-2020. Although Guideline 44P, “Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events,” was not due to be completed for several years, a subset of this committee developed interim guidance in the fall of 2020 because of the urgent need to protect building occupants from infiltration of wildfire smoke, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following interim guidance was provided by ASHRAE and the EPA ahead of the 2021 wildfire season:
This month, ASHRAE’s GPC 44 released its second public review draft of Guideline 44, “Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events” for public review and comment.
Guideline 44P is the first of its kind to provide recommendations to help building owners and managers prepare and respond to smoke. It was primarily developed to address episodes of severe wildfire smoke, but it can be applied to smoke from all types of fires, including prescribed burns. The guideline provides comprehensive information for building design, commissioning, operation, and maintenance for commercial buildings; institutional buildings, including healthcare facilities; and multi-unit residential buildings, as well as dedicated spaces within these building types intended for temporary human occupancy during a wildfire or prescribed burn smoke event.
This guidance is part of a resource collection at EPA on Wildfires and Indoor Air Quality in Schools and Commercial Buildings, which provides several resources for building owners and managers, school facility managers, public health officials, and emergency managers to reduce smoke concentrations in buildings.
Access the Second Public Review Draft of Guideline 44P at ASHRAE.org. Comments can be submitted via ASHRAE’s Online Comment Database. The comment period closes on Monday, July 29, 2024.
(Sources: EPA, ASHRAE)
The National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE) is the Department of Homeland Security's Center of Excellence for terrorism prevention and counterterrorism research. Based at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), the NCITE consortium includes more than 50 expert researchers from partner institutions across the U.S. and Europe.
NCITE will hold its annual ENVISION conference on June 26 and 27, 2024, in Omaha, Nebraska. While the in-person conference is invite-only, presentations will be streamed online throughout the day on June 26 and 27. The livestreams of the conference sessions are free to attend and open to the public after completing a brief registration form.
This year’s conference, ENVISION24, will explore topics such as changes in terrorist behaviors, extremist use of emerging technology, international threat assessment tools, and more.
Visit NCITE’s website to learn more about the speakers and see the full conference agenda. Complete the registration form to stream presentations from NCITE's annual conference live online via Zoom. Livestreamed sessions will run from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT on June 26 and from 10:00 a.m. to about 3:45 p.m. EDT on June 27.
(Source: NCITE)
|