The Departments of Defense, Energy and Homeland Security have agreed to work together on a new initiative to strengthen cyber security partnerships in the energy sector.
The goals of the Energy Sector Pathfinder Initiative "are to advance information sharing, improve training and education to understand systemic risks, and develop joint operational preparedness and response activities to cybersecurity threats," the DoE said on Monday.
The three departments signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) initiating the program.
"Through this agreement, we will strengthen the partnership between DoE, DHS, and DoD to enable intergovernmental cooperation and bolster our ability to proactively address cyber threats to critical energy infrastructure, and to respond effectively should those threats materialize," Karen Evans, assistant secretary of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response at DoE, said in a statement.
Bryan Ware, the new assistant director for Cybersecurity at the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a statement that "the lessons learned through this program will help inform the process to develop indicators and warnings across multiple national critical functions, enhance cyber threat information sharing efforts, and facilitate rapid response and improved resiliency across all sectors."
Kenneth Rapuano, assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security, said the MoU complements the "DoD Cyber Strategy objective to defense U.S. critical infrastructure from malicious foreign cyber activity."