Celebrating Telecommunicators Series: Cybersecurity in Emergency Communications Centers

As CISA continues to celebrate National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week (NPSTW) and Emergency Communications Month, this is an opportunity to recognize public safety telecommunicators and their dedication, hard work, and commitment to excellence. CISA salutes those professionals and honors the work they do every day.

Emergency Communications Centers (ECCs) across the nation can experience cyber incidents due to malicious actors or even an errant software update to a managed service provider’s network. ECC supervisors and telecommunicators play a critical role in minimizing the impact of cyber incidents and maintaining operations in the event of a cyberattack.

SAFECOM and National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators (NCSWIC) published the following resources to help ECCs prepare for and respond to cyberattacks:

• Two Things Every 911 Center Should Do to Improve Cybersecurity – Highlights actionable steps that ECCs can take to enhance their cybersecurity posture. This one-page reference document discusses how ECCs can conduct cyber risk assessments and develop cyber incident and vulnerability response plans
• Cyber Incident Response Case Studies for ECCs/Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) Suite – Highlights best practices from ECCs and PSAPs responding to real-world cyber incidents. The following documents provide actionable tips to help ECCs and PSAPs prepare for and respond to cyber incidents:
  • Malware Attacks: Lessons Learned from an ECC
  • Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS) Attacks: Lessons Learned from a PSAP
  • Cyber Incident Response to PSAPs: A State’s Perspective
• Guide to Getting Started with a Cyber Risk Assessment – Helps public safety communications systems operators, owners, and managers understand the steps of a cyber risk assessment
• First 48: What to Expect When a Cyber Incident Occurs – Provides lessons learned from public safety officials who have first-hand experience with cyberattacks. This document provides expectations and recommendations on how to proceed after experiencing a cyber incident

It is an honor to celebrate our nation’s public safety telecommunicators and CISA is grateful for its partnership with the 911 community. Visit us at National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week to see how CISA is celebrating NPSTW. We also encourage you to follow CISA throughout the month as CISA celebrates Emergency Communications Month. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.  

For additional SAFECOM and NCSWIC NG911 resources, visit the SAFECOM 911/NG911 Webpage or email ng911wg@cisa.dhs.gov.