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 previous post touched upon the difficulties that emergency medical service (EMS) agencies experience when trying to bill and then collect payment for the services that they provide. Those difficulties are considerable and have plagued the sector for as long as EMS has existed. Hundreds of millions of dollars go uncollected across the sector each year. For instance, an EMS study for one of MCP's clients wrote off $7 million last year because of an inability to bill for EMS services. That’s a big number.
Many EMS agencies across the United States are in similar circumstances. This makes it much more difficult for agencies to maintain their service-delivery models, pay salaries and benefits, ensure that existing equipment is operational, and upgrade or replace equipment that has reached or is approaching end of life.
March is designated as Women’s History Month. Coincidentally, on April 3, the Brazos Valley Council of Governments (BVCOG) celebrates its 30th anniversary. So, we thought it would be more than appropriate to chat with MCP client Anita Pitt, BVCOG’s 911 program director, who has been at the helm every step of the way and is considered one of the public-safety sector’s leading innovators. From humble beginnings, BVCOG’s 911 program today supports seven emergency communications centers in southeast Texas that serve a population of about 125,000.
A constant in the public safety community is that agencies, no matter where they are located, inevitably will encounter a crisis that will affect, or even disrupt, their operations. Hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, hazardous materials spills, cyberattacks, network outages and system failures—even a pandemic every century or so—can wreak havoc on an agency’s mission-critical operations. Consequently, it is imperative that every public safety agency has a crisis preparedness plan. This is particularly true of emergency communications centers that field 911 calls from the public and then dispatch the appropriate emergency response.
More and more public-safety agencies are beginning to understand the importance of continuity-of-operations (COOP) planning, which includes disaster recovery—this element focuses specifically on the agency’s information technology (IT) assets—and crisis communications, both to internal and external stakeholders.
When developing COOP plans, agencies tend to think solely about events that are likely to occur that could have a profound effect on their operations. These typically include weather events such as hurricanes, floods and tornados. Also on the list are natural disasters, such as wildfires and earthquakes, and human-induced catastrophes like hazardous-material spills and, increasingly, cyberattacks.
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.
This week there is a new critical alert that requires the mission-critical community’s immediate attention.
Microsoft released several security updates due to targeted attacks against vulnerabilities found in Microsoft Exchange Server (versions 2013, 2016, and 2019). Though the attacks appear to be limited, Microsoft is urging the immediate updating of all affected systems to mitigate the vulnerabilities and further abuse within networking environments where Exchange servers are being used. Microsoft attributes the activity to a cyberattack group known as “Hafnium.”
Over the last two years, Mission Critical Partners has grown significantly through acquisition, starting with Athena Advanced Networks in 2018, and continuing with Black & Veatch Public Safety and URL Integration last year. Last month, MCP announced its latest acquisition, Seattle-based MTG Management Consultants. The subject-matter experts who are joining MCP will enable us to better serve clients in the public-safety and justice communities by helping them enhance data integration and address their technology challenges.
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.
Topics: Cybersecurity, IT and Network Support
We surveyed MCP’s subject-matter experts earlier this year on the biggest trends impacting public safety right now, and asked for their insights on what they believe will happen in the near future. Here is what they said:
Last week, Mission Critical Partners (MCP) announced the acquisition of MTG Management Consultants (MTG), a Seattle-based firm that provides strategy and management services to local, county and state government entities. The acquisition further strengthens MCP’s credentials as the leading provider of consulting services—as well as data-integration, network and cybersecurity solutions—for public safety and justice sector clients.
More on that in a bit—but first, a history lesson that will provide some context for this development.
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.
This week there is a new critical alert that requires the mission-critical community’s immediate attention.
Apple announced that it has learned of three zero-day vulnerabilities affecting its iOS (formerly iPhone operating system). One of the vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-1782) affects the system kernel, allowing for privilege escalation; the other two (CVE-2021-1870, CVE-2021-1871) are present within the system’s WebKit Safari browser, allowing for remote code execution (RCE). According to Apple, all vulnerabilities have been patched in iOS 14.4.
Topics: Cybersecurity, Network Management
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.
This week there is a new critical alert that requires the mission-critical community’s immediate attention.
Advisory Overview
The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) service for Microsoft Windows devices operating on User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port 3389 can be used in an amplified attack, potentially resulting a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on a target. A system that is involved in, or is the target of, such an attack could experience partial or total degradation in usability. It is recommended that RDP services be available exclusively via virtual private network (VPN) services. If that is impossible, then RDP via UDP port 3389 should be blocked.
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