In Summary

• The Tennessee Emergency Communications Board (TECB) provides management and operations support to Tennessee's 100 emergency communications districts (ECDs), which in turn provide emergency communications services to the state's citizens and visitors via 119 primary and 24 secondary or backup emergency communications centers.
• Because of cybersecurity threats, the TECB decided that it needed a baseline security and cybersecurity assessment of Tennessee's 911 environment, and the Board partnered with Mission Critical Partners to conduct the assessment.
• As part of the project, each ECC received a report that identified and prioritized the risks associated with its unique 911 network and system environment, as well as strategies and tactics that each ECC could use to improve its physical security and cybersecurity posture.

Background

The TECB is transitioning to a statewide emergency services Internet Protocol (IP) network (ESInet) that will provide the transport architecture necessary to deliver 911 calls to Next Generation 911 (NG911)-compliant ECCs. NG911 is an advanced broadband communications system that enables the transmission of real-time text, images and video, in addition to voice, to help improve emergency response. 

In this on-demand webinar from Mission Critical Partners' virtual Conference for Advancing Public Safety hosted in June, hear from government leaders who have lived through an attack, as well as from public safety agency leaders who are taking aggressive steps to prevent attacks during an engaging panel discussion moderated by Glenn Bischoff.

Use the form below to download the on-demand webinar.

The number of cybersecurity offerings available for government agencies to implement are increasing in quantity and complexity. Many of the solutions available in today’s market come with a considerable price tag. Prevention solutions range from password policies, centralized ID management, multi-factor authentication, penetration testing, and more. During this webinar, we’ll outline some of the tools, utilities and service you should consider deploying, especially during a time such as COVID-19 where security is more vulnerable.

As we enter a new decade of public safety, what trends will shape the next ten years of public safety communications, and the year ahead? In our first webinar of 2020 we highlighted emerging technologies and trends to help public safety leaders make more informed decisions for this year and beyond. These industry trends cannot be ignored. 

In Summary:

• The FBI advises that it is no longer a question of if, but rather when, any individual public safety communications network is going to be attacked.
• There is a lot that public safety agencies can do on their own to increase the difficulty of hacking their networks and lessening the effects of cyberattacks.
• This whitepaper outlines a six-step treatment regimen, and discusses continuity-of-operations and disaster recovery.

A lot can go wrong with public safety communications networks from a cybersecurity perspective.