On May 12, NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association sent an urgent notice to our members about CISA and FBI best practices following the highly publicized Colonial Pipeline cyberattack. These expert agencies recommend that critical system owners and operators prioritize reading the cybersecurity advisory and follow recommended mitigation guidance to help protect against this malicious activity. My hope is in the typical hustle and bustle of the broadband world that our members would stop what they are doing for a minute and actually task someone on their team to read the advisory and think about how their own networks, and those they manage, need to be shored up.
Cybersecurity and its impact on our daily lives has never been more top of mind than it is as we see the photos of consumers waiting in line for gas across the east coast this week. We are finding that nearly all gas stations here in Arlington, VA are indeed empty still. It was reported that a cyberattack had forced the shutdown of one of the country’s largest pipelines. This caused gas stations in the southeast face significant shortages. In the meantime, the Colonial Pipeline Company announced that it has resumed operations, which will likely take several days to return to normal.
The Colonial Pipeline Company is just the latest victim of a ransomware attack and small and medium-sized businesses are not immune to this kind of threat. Ransomware is a type of malware that attempts to deny access to a user’s data until the ransom is paid and big companies aren’t the only target. Small broadband operators, including NTCA member companies, have been the targets of these kinds of attacks in recent years.
In a keynote address to NTCA’s Cybersecurity Summit attendees in December 2020, Laura Galante, CEO and Founder of Galante Strategies, talked about local broadband providers as the “new front lines” of cybersecurity taking on nation-state adversaries and foreign actors. Cyber disruption for NTCA members means serious interruptions in their own communities and in the lives of their customers who rely on broadband for vital elements of their lives including work, education and healthcare. It’s more important than ever for rural broadband providers to understand the gravity and importance of cybersecurity to their company. All you have to do is look at the statistic that the average cyberattack costs a small company $170,000-$300,000 to recover from, and feel the knot tie up in your stomach.
In addition, the Biden administration has announced a 100-day plan to address cybersecurity risks to the nation’s power grid. While this week’s focus is on the energy industry, the larger conversation is about securing our nation’s infrastructure, much of which is owned and operated by the private sector and effectively serves as the “front lines” Galante referenced. Our nation’s small broadband operators, NTCA members, are an important part of this conversation, and one of the tools to specifically help small broadband providers protect their networks through cyberthreat information sharing is CyberShare: The small broadband provider ISAC. CyberShare promotes the resiliency and continuity of operation of small broadband providers across the United States.
I strongly encourage NTCA members to have someone from your organization attend Cybersecurity Series Part 2: Protecting Your Network and Data on Wednesday, June 23, which will address the most common vulnerabilities in your workplace and networks and will offer practical advice on addressing them.
