March 19, 2020
Background: During the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has developed an initial list of ‘Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers’ to help state and local officials as they work to protect their communities, while ensuring continuity of functions critical to public health and safety as well as economic and national security.
Robert Mayer, USTelecom’s Senior Vice President for Cybersecurity and Innovation and Chair of the Communications Sector Coordinating Council said:
“The nation is relying on its communications infrastructure now more than ever. Today, CISA took an important step to help maintain network preparedness, security and resiliency in the midst of the COVID-19 public health crisis.
“Here’s why this is important news: the employees managing the health and security of our networks work in operations centers and need to reach their workplace to do their jobs. In addition, some functions can only be handled in-person, so communications providers must keep critical store locations open to service first responder equipment like routers or provide publicly accessible Wi-Fi.
“Today’s guidance means we can continue to serve all of our customers, protect our employees and maintain communications operations throughout this unprecedented national emergency.”
Read the Communications Sector Coordinating Council letter to CISA here.