US, International Cyber Agencies Urge Managed Service Providers to Implement Baseline Security Measures

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Security Agency, the FBI and international partners have issued a joint advisory offering several measures managed service providers and customers can take to protect themselves from malicious cyber actors.

The advisory outlines baseline security measures and controls that should be implemented by MSPs and their clients, including preventing initial compromise through the implementation of mitigation resources to safeguard initial compromise attack techniques from internet-facing services, phishing, password spraying and vulnerable devices, CISA said Wednesday.

The U.S. federal agencies and cybersecurity partners from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. suggested that MSPs should enable logging and monitoring through the implementation of endpoint detection and network defense monitoring capabilities, enforce multifactor authentication and secure remote access applications.

“Securing MSPs are critical to our collective cyber defense, and CISA and our interagency and international partners are committed to hardening their security and improving the resilience of our global supply chain,” CISA Director Jen Easterly.

Organizations should come up with incident response and recovery plans and manage supply chain risk across legal, procurement and security groups using risk assessments to prioritize the allocation of resources.

“This joint guidance will help MSPs and customers engage in meaningful discussions on the responsibilities of securing networks and data,” said Rob Joyce, cybersecurity director at NSA. “Our recommendations cover actions such as preventing initial compromises and managing account authentication and authorization.”

Easterly and Joyce are 2022 Wash100 Award winners.

Data-driven cyber posture will be the focal point of discussion at the Potomac Officers Club’s virtual forum on May 24. Join POC’s Reframing Cyber Posture Around Data Collection, Analysis, and Action Forum to hear from government and industry representatives as they discuss how both sectors are working to improve national cybersecurity.