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Volume 25 — Issue 4 | January 30, 2025

CISA Firefighter Cancer Prevention Fireside Chat

Cancer remains a significant yet often overlooked hazard in the fire service.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) will hold a Firefighter Cancer Prevention Fireside Chat on Monday, Feb. 10, 2025, from 2-3:30 p.m. EST.

This virtual event will be hosted by CISA’s Emergency Services Sector Management Team (ES SMT) and is targeted to all fire and rescue services and emergency medical services (EMS) personnel.

The event aims to spotlight and advocate for healthy practices within the fire/rescue services, particularly focusing on cancer risk reduction strategies. The discussion will cover occupational exposure risks, lifestyle factors, methods to mitigate cancer risks, and optimal approaches to cancer prevention.

Download CISA’s flyer for this event for more information and a link to register.

For more information, contact the Emergency Services Sector Management Team at EmergencyServicesSector@mail.cisa.dhs.gov.

(Source: CISA)

Highlights

CISA Firefighter Cancer Prevention Fireside Chat

DEA releases 2024 edition of Drugs of Abuse

FEMA releases 13th annual National Preparedness Report

Webinar: National Resource Hub - From Chaos to Coordination: The RIS Advantage in Disaster Preparedness

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.

DEA releases 2024 edition of Drugs of Abuse

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has released the 2024 edition of Drugs of Abuse: A DEA Resource Guide, which is designed to be a reliable resource on the most commonly used and misused drugs in the United States.

Drugs of Abuse provides important science-based information about the harms and consequences of drug use, describing a drug’s effects on the body and mind, overdose potential, origin, legal status, and other key factors. The guide outlines U.S. drug regulation, including drug scheduling and chemical controls. 

The 2024 edition updates the 2022 Drugs of Abuse publication with the most current information on new and emerging trends in drug misuse and abuse, including fentanyl, methamphetamine, marijuana concentrates, vaping, stimulant drugs, and fake pills. 

Because education plays a critical role in preventing substance abuse, this comprehensive guide is intended as a tool not just for medical practitioners and law enforcement officials, but also for educators, families, and communities.

For more information and to view the 2024 Drugs of Abuse resource guide in both English and Spanish, visit www.getsmartaboutdrugs.com/publications.

(Source: DEA)

FEMA releases 13th annual National Preparedness Report

For more than a decade, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been reporting on the state of national preparedness to identify the risks and opportunities that inform emergency management decision-making.

FEMA’s 2024 National Preparedness Report provides a data-driven picture of national preparedness and emergency management trends. It offers all levels of government, tribes, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the public practical insights to inform decisions about program priorities, resource allocations and actions that can create more resilient communities.

This year, the report places particular emphasis on four core capabilities: Mass Care Services, Public Information and Warning, Infrastructure Systems, and Cybersecurity. These areas continue to present significant challenges, but also opportunities for enhancing national resilience.

The analysis presented in the report identified several key takeaways:

• Disasters are becoming costlier and deadlier.
• Sophisticated data analysis tools are essential to develop effective, place-based recovery strategies.
• Individuals and households are taking disaster preparedness more seriously and improving their risk literacy.
• Decaying legacy infrastructure and outdated building codes continue to pose a significant vulnerability nationwide for the foreseeable future.
• The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology allows determined adversaries to strike harder and with less warning.
• Risk and resilience across the nation is evolving, but not uniformly. National assessments enhance our understanding of evolving risk and resilience challenges for disadvantaged communities.

Learn more in FEMA’s Jan. 14 news release. Access the full report at FEMA.gov.

(Source: FEMA)

Webinar: National Resource Hub - From Chaos to Coordination: The RIS Advantage in Disaster Preparedness

FEMA is hosting two sessions of a 1-hour webinar on the Response Inventory System (RIS), National Resource Hub: From Chaos to Coordination: The RIS Advantage in Disaster Preparedness

Resource management is the cornerstone of preparing for and responding to incidents that require mutual aid among agencies and jurisdictions.

The webinar will cover the basic capabilities and functions of RIS. Participants will learn:

• The benefits of using RIS before, during, and after a disaster.
• RIS’s role in the resource management process.
• How to use RIS to type, inventory, and prepare resources ahead of a disaster.
• How to use RIS when responding to a disaster.

There will be a live demonstration of how to use RIS, and participants will be able to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

Please register in advance to attend either of the following offerings of this webinar. Each session will cover the same information:

• Tuesday, Feb. 4, from 1-2 p.m. EST [Registration link].
• Thursday, Feb. 6, from 1-2 p.m. EST [Registration link].

(Source: FEMA)

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

North Korean IT workers conducting data extortion

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is providing an update to previously shared guidance regarding Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) Information Technology (IT) workers to raise public awareness of their increasingly malicious activity, which has recently included data extortion.

FBI is warning the public, private sector, and international community about North Korean IT workers' continued victimization of US-based businesses. In recent months, in addition to data extortion, FBI has observed North Korean IT workers leveraging unlawful access to company networks to exfiltrate proprietary and sensitive data, facilitate cyber-criminal activities, and conduct revenue-generating activity on behalf of the regime.

Access the full public service announcement (PSA) on the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

(Source: FBI IC3)

Content Credentials: Strengthening multimedia integrity in the generative AI era

With the rise of advanced tools that enable the rapid creation, alteration, and distribution of images, videos, and other digital content, there are many ways to manipulate what people see and believe. Content provenance solutions aim to establish the lineage of media, including its source and editing history over time.

Of these solutions, Content Credentials™ are a provenance solution that uses cryptographically signed metadata describing the provenance of media. This metadata can be attached to the media content during export from software or even at creation on hardware.

This cybersecurity information sheet, Content Credentials: Strengthening Multimedia Integrity in the Generative AI Era, authored by the National Security Agency (NSA), Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), and United Kingdom National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK), discusses how Content Credentials can provide transparency for the provenance of media, raises awareness of the state of this solution, introduces recommended practices to preserve provenance information, and emphasizes the importance of widespread adoption across the information ecosystem.

(Source: NSA)

NIST releases draft Ransomware Risk Management: CSF 2.0 Community Profile for public comment

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has published an initial public draft of NIST Interagency Report (NIST IR) 8374 Revision 1, Ransomware Risk Management: A Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 Community Profile.

Organizations at home and abroad use NIST IR 8374 to guard against ransomware. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking your feedback on the publication’s contents and the future direction of NIST’s ransomware guidance.

The public comment period is open now until Friday, March 14, 2025. See NIST’s Jan. 13 announcement for more information and instructions on how to leave comments on the draft.

(Source: NIST NCCoE)

Report: 58% of ransomware victims forced to shut down operations

Over half (58%) of organizations hit by ransomware in 2024 were forced to shut down operations in order to recover, according to a new report by the Ponemon Institute.

This represents a significant increase from the previous Global Cost of Ransomware Study by Ponemon from 2021, which found that 45% of ransomware victims shut down operations as a consequence of the attack. The new report emphasized the growing impact ransomware attacks are having on victims’ revenue and reputations.

According to the findings, containment and remediation of an organization’s largest ransomware attack took an average of 132 hours and used an average of 17.5 staff and third parties. This resulted in an overall average cost of $146,685.

Reputation and brand damage is now considered to be the biggest financial cost of a ransomware attack, replacing the costs associated with legal and regulatory actions in 2021.

Just 28% of respondents said their organizations informed law enforcement when they were hit by ransomware.

(Source: Infosecurity Magazine)

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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