The National Council of ISACs (NCI) is the coordinating body designed to maximize information flow across the private sector critical infrastructures and with the U.S. government. All 25 of the sector-based Information Sharing and Analysis Centers collaborate with each other via the National Council of ISACs. The NCI is a true cross-sector partnership, providing a forum for sharing cyber and physical threats and mitigation strategies among ISACs and with government and private sector partners during both steady-state conditions and incidents requiring cross-sector response. Sharing and coordination is accomplished through daily and weekly calls between ISAC operations centers, daily reports, requests-for-information, monthly meetings, exercises, and other activities as situations require. The NCI also organizes its own drills and exercises and participates in national exercises.

The media and entertainment industries face many unique risks and threats, such as piracy of film, TV, and music, but also faces all the same threats every other industry faces, such as nation-state sponsored and cyber crime groups extorting money via ransomware, business email compromise, or data breaches. These attackers do not distinguish between victims; if any one of us is attacked, the others are very likely to see that same attack. This is true across both cyber and physical threats and across sector-specific and general threats. The ME-ISAC aims to enable better security across the entire industry by enabling a better informed defense.

“Joining the National Council of ISACs was a very important milestone for the ME-ISAC. Being able to formalize our relationship with the other critical infrastructure ISACs was vital in order for us to all work together towards a stronger future,” said Chris Taylor, Director of the ME-ISAC. “So many of the threats we face cross multiple sectors that it is imperative that we all work together in order to help each other identify and understand the ever changing threat landscape.”