Community Update: Deborah Kobza announces formation of Cognitive Security ISAO

PCI Community Member Deborah Kobza announced the launch of the Cognitive Security ISAO (Information Sharing and Analysis Association), headquartered at the International Association of Certified ISAOs (IACI – IACI-CERT at the Center for Space Education, NASA/Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The Cognitive Security ISAO’s mission is to “accelerate cognitive security resilience by advancing the capacity and capability to share malign influence and disinformation intelligence, and to create, disseminate and apply the countermeasures, tools, technologies, best practices and education to protect the global information ecosystem”.

The executive briefing on the ISAO launch explained “Cognitive Security Resilience” as the ability to identify, detect, protect, respond, recover and resist manipulation by means of disinformation and propaganda and the converging factors of technology, media and human behaviors. “Protection of individual and collective information integrity focuses on the evolving information ecosystem (IE), and the continual race to protect global organizations and individuals at multiple scales.”

As a Member of the International Association of Certified ISAOs (IACI), the Cognitive Security ISAO will coordinate and collaborate with the US Department of Homeland Security through a formal “Cybersecurity Information Sharing Collaborative Agreement” (CISCA) between IACI and DHS, that provides IACI Member ISAOs and their respective members with cybersecurity information sharing protections (CISA ACT) and access to US DHS shared intelligence information.

Kobza notes that the CS-ISAO “integrated many recommendations and suggestions from in-depth research, and especially including, but not limited to the insight and vision of Rand Waltzman, David Bray, Vint Cerf, Sara Jayne Terp, Pablo Breur, Joerg Eschweiler, Friederike Franque, Todd Hillis, Kevin Manson, and many others [in the PCI community].”

As all ISAOs, the CS-ISAO is private-sector member-led working in collaboration with government. The Cognitive Security Resilience Council guides the CS-ISAO, operationalized by CS-ISAO Executive Management and Staff, and is sustained by Members.

The CS-ISAO intelligence information sharing infrastructure includes automated intel information sharing technologies, security tools and technologies providing members with email domain monitoring and other services, daily advisories and alerts, reports, and secure communications (military-grade encryption – voice, email, text, document sharing).

The CS-ISAO is participating in the upcoming US DHS Cyber Exercise ‘Cyberstorm 2020’, exercising cognitive security injects working in coordination and coordination with IACI and DHS.

The IACI’s “Cyber FIrst Responder” project that includes integration of Cognitive Security will kick off in February, with five workshops bringing together government, critical infrastructure, and other communities of interest and collaboration with DHS/CISA, other US federal agencies, state governments, international organizations, critical infrastructure owners and operators.

For more information, please contact The Cognitive Security ISAO, IACI-CERT – dkobza@certifiedisao.org, 904-476-7858.