On January 9, the Maryland Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MD-ISAC) was made available to government partners. The center is comprised of a combination of people, process, technology and partners staffed with a complement of cyber threat intelligence (CTI) analysts that develop and curate information that can help prevent successful cyberattacks against Maryland and its local government partners.

The MD-ISAC is an effort that started in late 2021 and was included in Senate Bill 754, which was signed into law by Governor Hogan on May 12, 2022.

“The approach that we’ve taken is to be proactive in finding the holes and tools that cybercriminals could use to launch a successful attack — and then working to close those doors before they have the opportunity to exploit it,” said State Chief Information Security Officer Chip Stewart. “This is more than repackaging already shared and outdated bulletins. This drives meaningful reduction in cyber risk.”

Stewart continued by explaining that “creating actionable intelligence, and then acting on it, is the most effective tool that we have to defend ourselves against all classes of cyber adversaries — from nation-states to hacktivists.”

MD-ISAC membership is open to any government entity within the state, including counties, cities, towns and public school systems.