Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Fortinet and Microsoft Exchange Vulnerability Exploits

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

Broadband Could Be the Key to Unlocking Federal Funds for NG911 Implementations

It has been a few weeks since Congress reduced the amount of federal funding for Next Generation 911 (NG911) implementations in the Build Back Better Act — also known as the Budget Reconciliation Act —from $10 billion to $470 million. Also included is $20 million for administrative costs associated with the grant program that will disperse the money, $9 million to establish an NG911 cybersecurity center and $1 million for establishing an NG911 advisory board. The House passed this legislation on November 19 and it now goes to the Senate.

There seems to be a considerable amount of handwringing about what slashing NG911 funding by roughly 95 percent means for the future of this vital technology. That’s understandable. NG911 represents a quantum leap forward compared with legacy 911 systems — an apt analogy is that the former is an airplane while the latter is a horse and buggy.

911 Telecommunicators Need Help and Alternative Responses Are Part of the Solution

Emergency communications centers (ECCs) — also known as public-safety answering points (PSAPs) —handle an enormous volume of 911 calls, about 240 million annually nationwide. This figure is expected to rise significantly over the next few years, driven by smartphones, alarm systems, and internet of things (IoT) devices (e.g., wearable medical monitors).

As call volumes rise, telecommunicators who already are short/understaffed, undertrained, and under siege in many ECCs will be subject to even greater pressures as they work to send the correct response in the shortest amount of time. Fortunately, ways exist to relieve these pressures, and many agencies are exploring how they can strengthen and diversify how they respond to calls for service, both 911 and non-emergency.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: New Malware Used to Deploy Qakbot and Cobalt Strike

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

Decision Regarding NG911 Is An Obstacle That Can Be Overcome

Last week the 911 community received some bad news.

The House recommended just $500 million for Next Generation 911 implementations, a fraction of the $10 billion that it originally recommended. (See the Urgent Communications story.)

We know that $500 million isn’t going to stretch very far. We also know that the $10 billion is right in line with the Next Generation 911 Cost Study that Congress requested in 2012. Three years ago, the National 911 Program published the Cost Study, with support from Mission Critical Partners. Congress had requested a comprehensive investigation into the cost of deploying NG911 service nationwide. It did so in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 — the same legislation that authorized the nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN) being implemented under the auspices of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and provided $7 billion in seed money.

An Introduction to Data Lakes for Public Safety and Justice Organizations

Imagine that you're a fisherman, and you need to catch a large volume and wide variety of fish. Now imagine that the fish scatter amongst numerous rivers and streams, a situation that makes your task far more time-consuming and difficult. Moreover, you risk missing some types of fish you need to catch to fulfill your mission, either because you can't find them or you run out of time.

This metaphor describes the environment in which public safety and justice organizations are working today. Many systems exist that generate or store information vital to investigators, prosecutors, judges, and corrections officials. However, many are unable to access the information when they need to do so. That's because siloes exist in these systems, making it incredibly challenging for the individual entities that comprise the public safety and justice ecosystem — the 911 community, law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts, and jails/prisons — to exchange data. Siloed systems are analogous to the rivers and streams in our metaphor.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: BlackMatter Ransomware

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

A Primer on the Most Prevalent Cyberattack Vectors

Cyberattacks pose to organizations in the public safety and justice sectors. This post offers a primer on the most prevalent attack vectors.

Ransomware — This is a specific type of malware that enables cyberattackers to encrypt the targeted organization’s files. Only when the organization agrees to pay a ransom—hence the name—does the cyberattacker decrypt the files. In the current environment, this is one of the most prevalent cyber attacks and is increasing in frequency.

After Radio System Implementation, There Is Still Much to Do

A radio system implementation is an enormous undertaking that requires months, sometime years, of planning followed by years of deployment. The process starts with development of technical specifications and creation of procurement documents, usually in the form of a request for proposals. Vendor responses then must be scored and evaluated. A vendor must be selected, and a contract negotiated, including performance requirements. The system then must be designed, staged, built, and tested to ensure that it is performing as designed. Finally, the system goes live.

And that’s when the real work begins.

Once the new system is operating, it must be managed and maintained, which requires a considerable time investment and an equally considerable amount of expertise and experience. Mission Critical Partners has developed a checklist of 67 tasks that must be performed to effectively manage and maintain a radio system, with most of these tasks falling to the agency to perform.

Eleven Advanced Cybersecurity Tactics for Courts

Previous blogs presented an overview of the grave threat cyberattacks present to the justice community and essential strategies and tactics for preventing them. This blog offers intermediate and advanced strategies and tactics suggested by the Joint Technology Committee in its resource bulletin, “Cybersecurity Basics for Courts.” The committee is a joint effort of the Conference of State Court Administrators, the National Association for Court Management, and the National Center for State Courts.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: BulletProofLink Makes Cyberattacks Easier

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

Your Agency Experienced a Cyberattack — Now What?

MCP’s website is updated regularly with content pertaining to cybersecurity. So far, all of it has been focused on helping our clients prevent cyberattacks, or at least reducing their likelihood by the greatest extent possible. Of particular importance are the threat assessments that we regularly issue, and the “cyber chats” conducted each month by Mike Beagles, MCP’s director of technology and cybersecurity services, who is a certified Cisco CyberOps associate.

One of our clients recently suffered a significant cybersecurity breach that caused extensive damage to its networks and systems. (It’s important to note at this juncture that MCP is providing numerous services to this client, but none related to cybersecurity.) The city only discovered that it had been hacked when Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents visited its information technology (IT) department.

The FBI had been monitoring the dark web and found numerous indicators that something nefarious was happening. Digging further, aided by a white-hat hacker firm, they discovered that the cyberattacker not only had wormed his or her way into the city’s network infrastructure but also had been there for some time and had infiltrated many aspects of the city’s network. It was a very sophisticated attack that affected numerous organizations.