Your country needs you – report hackers now, says US government

While the U.S. intelligence community is making headlines with multimillion-dollar bounties on the world's most wanted hackers, the U.S. government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has quietly launched a new CISA service portal with a cyber incident reporting system designed to help identify these incidents.

The new CISA service portal

The Voluntary Cyber ​​Incident Reporting resource is part of a newly launched CISA service portal that contains all the resources needed to assist with the aftermath of a cyber incident and includes a frequently asked questions section. According to CISA, the new portal is part of an ongoing effort to improve the overall cyber incident reporting process.

The portal itself is available with integration for partner organizations with Login.gov credentials, but there is also an anonymous access path that does not require registration and also allows for incident reporting. As you would expect, it is a secure platform and CISA encourages all organizations to utilize the services of the new, streamlined portal and voluntary reporting system.

These services include the ReadySetCyber ​​program, which helps organizations understand cyber risks and create a customized roadmap of available resources, the enhanced Crossfeed asset scanning platform, and a chat system that connects with the regional CISA cybersecurity advisor in one of the ten regional offices.

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CISA’s voluntary cyber incident reporting service

CISA's own voluntary cyber incident reporting resource was developed to guide incident reporting through a sometimes daunting process during the most difficult of times. The system is specifically designed to help organizations better understand the who, why, when, what, and how of incident reporting: who should report an incident, why and when to report it, what to report, and how to report it.

It's important to note that the CISA reporting service is open to all organizations, regardless of whether they are subject to statutory reporting requirements. Use of the service can be beneficial across all sectors of government and industry, and can contribute to a better collective understanding of the cyber threat landscape. Essentially, it's a patriotic gesture: your country really needs it when you report a hacker.

“CISA and our government partners have unique resources and tools to help with response and recovery,” said Jeff Greene, CISA's deputy director for cybersecurity, “but we can't help if we don't know about an incident.” Sharing incident reporting information helps CISA “work with all of our partners to prevent attackers from using the same techniques on other victims,” ​​Greene concluded, “and gain insight into the scope of an adversary's campaign.”

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