COLORADO SPRINGS – Keeping our space assets safe – that’s the goal of a new partnership between the National Cybersecurity Center and Space ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center).
The big announcement was made on Monday at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.
Frank Backes, senior vice president of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, said there are several different ISAC’s across the country protecting parts of our infrastructure like aviation, financial services, and defense. However, until Monday, there’s never been one dedicated to space.
Backes said, “Today’s announcement was the official support from the White House on this particular initiative.”
This partnership has been a year in the making as talks began at last year’s Space Symposium.
Backes said, “For an ISAC to be effective you need an operational component – the ability to from a real-time, day-to-day mission standpoint, be able to track and analyze threats and vulnerabilities to our space assets.”
The NCC will now be that operational arm, acting as a physical home base and portal for Space ISAC.
Vance Brown, CEO of the National Cybersecurity Center, said, “I think the greatest threat even facing our space assets would be a cyber threat and to have a public, private partnership that is responsible for sharing information related to any kind of cyber threats to our space assets is very important.”
As Backes said, “Our everyday lives depend on space infrastructure more than anybody realizes.”
Brown said, “Think of our space assets – if they were somehow shut down then that shuts down some core infrastructure for not just our economy, not just business, but certainly from a military perspective.”
This partnership will mean an expansion of the NCC facility to include a laboratory which will house NCC workers, students from University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and industry analysts. New training programs for those involved will begin next month.
This partnership will not only create a lot of jobs in the Colorado Springs region, but across the country. The NCC said that by 2021 there will be close to three and a half million open cybersecurity jobs nationwide.
