en.Wedoany.com Reported - Eight U.S. telecom companies have jointly established the Communications Information Sharing and Analysis Center to address increasingly complex cyber threats through shared threat intelligence and a unified defense mechanism. The nonprofit organization, officially named the Communications Information Sharing and Analysis Center, was co-founded by eight founding companies—AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Lumen Technologies, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Zayo—with the goal of enhancing the overall cybersecurity posture of the communications industry.
AT&T Chief Information Security Officer Rich Baich serves as the first chairman of the C2 ISAC board. Baich told the media that the concept of advancing collective defense in response to shifting geopolitical dynamics and cybersecurity progress led the companies to quickly reach a consensus. However, the formation process still required sorting out legal matters and completing the necessary steps for nonprofit registration. C2 ISAC will officially begin operations in June.
The idea of forming C2 ISAC began over a year ago, at a time when the industry had ad hoc collaborative activities but lacked a formal organization. Baich and T-Mobile Senior Vice President of Cybersecurity Mark Clancy had previously worked together in the financial services industry, which helped drive the project's launch. Clancy noted that creating a platform for companies to share information involves both risks and benefits, and the key lies in striking the right balance between them. Speed is one of the core elements—the faster relevant information can be shared, the better the response. Clancy stated that while the formal structure is still in its early stages, the goal is to share as close to real-time as possible as events unfold, similar to a phone tree mechanism, where one company quickly alerts others upon detecting an anomaly, with different scopes of attack impact triggering corresponding response measures.
Artificial intelligence is intensifying cyber threat challenges. One of the major challenges historically has been the speed at which attackers launch attacks, and the situation will change significantly with the addition of AI. Clancy observed that AI will clearly have a profound impact on the threat landscape, with the biggest question being the pace of the impending changes. These changes also apply to the supplier domain, as communications service providers share a large number of the same suppliers, which is precisely where security vulnerabilities emerge quickly and forcefully. Clancy believes this lifecycle is shortening, and the industry must be more flexible, more agile, and communicate at a higher frequency than before. The initial focus of C2 ISAC is on the carrier domain, with subsequent discussions planned on how to expand and how to handle critical suppliers in this space.
To assist the organization with its day-to-day operations, Valerie Moon, who has over 20 years of career experience with the FBI, will serve as Executive Director of C2 ISAC, based in Washington, D.C. The organizational structure has Moon responsible for daily operations, with the chief information officers of the eight founding companies serving as the initial board members. Baich stated that no single incident, such as Salt Typhoon, triggered the formation of C2 ISAC, but rather that cyber threats are generally becoming more complex and sophisticated, and the industry needed an organized framework to accelerate information sharing. When asked whether it was modeled after the collaboration model in the financial industry, Baich responded that it is not entirely the case, and the goal is to do better, viewing this as collective defense because that is where the greatest value lies.
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