WASHINGTON, D.C.—Federal Communications Commission has announced that the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to host a public roundtable on strengthening the cybersecurity of the nation’s public alert and warning systems.
At the October 30 event, the agencies will bring together those involved in Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert to discuss topics including cybersecurity risk management and incident reporting for alerting.
“The Commission has recently taken a series of significant actions to improve the nation’s alerting systems, working closely with our government partners,” said FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “As part of this ongoing effort, we are pleased to partner with CISA to sharpen the focus on the security of America’s alerting infrastructure. It is critical that these essential systems function in emergencies and that the public can trust the warnings they receive.”
Last October, the Commission proposed rules to protect against cyberattacks of the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts. The roundtable will build upon the record in that proceeding, the FCC reported.
In the runup to the event, the FCC also outlined a number of steps that it has recently made to strengthen emergency alerting. Those include:
- Adopted rules to make Emergency Alert System messages clearer and easier to understand on television.
- Entered into an unprecedented partnership with state and local governments to test Wireless Emergency Alerts on the local level, to help assess geographic accuracy.
- Partnered with FEMA on the third nationwide test of Wireless Emergency Alerts and the seventh nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System.
- Proposed rules to establish reliability, accuracy, and speed benchmarks to improve the performance of Wireless Emergency Alerts.
- Announced that on October 19, the Commission will vote on new rules to enhance Wireless Emergency Alerts by making them available in numerous additional languages, including American Sign Language; supporting maps that show the location of an emergency; and providing the public with easy access to information about the availability of Wireless Emergency Alerts.
Further information about the upcoming roundtable is available here:
