The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the newest federal agency. CISA leads the Federal Government’s efforts to improve and maintain the highest level of security when it comes to protecting our nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure.
ClearanceJobs had a conversation with Daniel Rivera, the Deputy Branch Chief of Active Assailant Security at CISA, about the agency’s role in delivering expertise and essential guidance to public and private stakeholders to build security capacity that addresses the dynamic threat environment, including an active shooter threat. Rivera has almost a decade of experience at the agency and its predecessor in providing the critical infrastructure community with information regarding terrorist attacks, extremist actors and mitigating factors, as well as preventive training and education.
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS WITHIN CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Rivera maintains oversight on a variety of different threat factors – including new and emerging threats. Rivera says that on any given day, you can find his team “trying to develop and improve the content of our online training materials, training videos, printed publications and resources, as well as improving the curriculum.”
CISA’s resources enhance preparedness through a community approach with a variety of products, tools, and outreach. They develop these resources to help stakeholders recognize threats early. In the field, this includes materials for citizens and business owners in 20+ languages to reach individuals of different backgrounds.
“Everything we do is developed for the critical infrastructure owner and operator in mind…so they can help mitigate risk against an active assailant attack,” Rivera says.
CAPACITY BUILDING
Active shooter incidents, which are usually unpredictable, have been in the news of late and are situations that can evolve quickly. CISA maintains a comprehensive set of resources aimed at better positioning the public and private sectors to reduce the impacts of an active shooter incident. Notably, the IS-907 independent study course ‘Active Shooter: What You Can Do’ helps to save lives by providing information on actions that individuals can take to mitigate the impacts of an incident, as well as the long-lasting consequences of an active shooter event. Since the program’s inception, Rivera notes they have had 1.1 million course completions.
Amid these chaotic events, anyone can play an integral role in mitigating the impacts of incident. The Active Assailant Branch offers critical infrastructure owners and operators a variety of products, tools and resources that help organizations build capacity. In addition to the IS-907 online training course, organizations, human resources and security professionals, first responders, and private sector citizens can access a variety of active assailant resources such as informational booklets, guides, fact sheets and training videos.
Hometown security and emergency preparedness through active shooter capacity-building efforts are important elements of CISA’s work that have a direct impact on saving lives within many U.S. communities. Looking for a new career opportunity to directly contribute to saving lives?
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