Federal lawmakers highlight FirstNet’s cybersecurity needs during hearing
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Federal lawmakers highlight FirstNet’s cybersecurity needs during hearing
Kennedy said FirstNet also plans to depend on cybersecurity expertise from the private sector.
“We’re really looking for industry, as part of their responses to this RFP, to bring forward private-sector best practices as part of their solutions that will judged against our standards that we’ve put forward … [in] the RFP],” Kennedy said. The RFP’s cybersecurity objectives are designed to “make sure that we ensure the security of all the data related to emergency medical services and law enforcement and the fact that we’re going to have all of this data operating across the FirstNet network.”
David Furth, deputy chief of the FCC’s public-safety and homeland-security bureau, note that the FCC’s Task Force on Optimal PSAP Architecture (TFOPA) studying the transition of 911 centers to IP-based next-generation 911 technology includes a working group dedicated to addressing cybersecurity.
“We recognize that this a critical issue, and we’re concerned that many PSAPs—particularly smaller ones—around the country are not adequately prepared,” Furth said during the hearing. “That task force has just came back to us, as of last week, with a series of very detailed recommendations on how to move forward on cybersecurity for PSAPs in the [next-gen 911] world, and we’re working with FirstNet to make sure that those recommendations sync up with what FirstNet is doing, so that both ends of the communications chain are secure from cyberattack.”