How Public & Private Sectors Can Better Align Cyber Defense

COMMENTARY Cybercrime isn't just an inconvenience — it's a serious threat capable of disrupting essential infrastructure, endangering public safety, and shaking the foundations of our financial systems and economy. We've all seen the headlines in recent years — from a cyberattack on an energy pipeline that disrupted the fuel supply across parts of the US to a large-scale ransomware attack on a health insurance provider that led to a massive leak of personal data. Uncovering and combating cybercrime remains a complex challenge for many reasons, but chief among them is the disconnect in data collection, sharing, and collaboration between the public and private sectors. Critical infrastructure, essential utilities like power and water, local municipalities and services (think 911 and EMS), small and midsize businesses, and healthcare — not one of these is off-limits to cybercriminals. And as threat actors become more aggressive, our defenses must keep up. The US government has a duty to take the lead in defending the nation against cybercrime. But while there's been some progress over the past few decades toward stronger national leadership on cybersecurity, the truth is that there's been a lot of added red tape with no clear responsible party. Over the past 25 years, organizations like the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have been created. The...