Cyber Readiness Institute (CRI) and U.S Department of Homeland Security Partner to Help U.S. Businesses Bolster Cyber Defenses

WASHINGTON, DC, June 2, 2020 – The Cyber Readiness Institute (CRI) is partnering with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on cybersecurity guides for small businesses.

Elements of CRI’s Cyber Readiness Program will be incorporated in the Cyber Essential Toolkits being released by CISA.

Founded with a guiding mission to provide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with free tools and resources to help them become more secure and resilient, CRI offers the comprehensive Cyber Readiness Program. The Program’s workforce training is designed to focus on human behavior and place significant emphasis on addressing the impact that the actions of employees have on an organization’s cyber protections.

“Our nation’s SMEs are vulnerable and under attack and have limited resources to bolster cybersecurity for their employees, customers and partners,” said Kiersten Todt, managing director of CRI. “CISA’s free cybersecurity resources are foundational cyber building blocks that all businesses should use. We are proud to be part of CISA’s Cyber Essential Toolkits and look forward to continuing to work closely DHS.”

CISA’s Cyber Essential Toolkits are a follow up to the release of the CISA Cyber Essentials last fall. The toolkits will provide small businesses, as well as local government agencies, with greater detail and insight on each of the toolkit’s six Essential Elements to help organizations understand where to start implementing organizational changes to improve cybersecurity practices. Each toolkit provides links to resources for implementing recommended actions.

There will be six toolkits in all (one for each of the Cyber Essentials’ Essential Elements).

The first toolkit released in February is focused on: “Yourself: Drive Cybersecurity Strategy, Investment and Culture.” Leveraging CRI resources, the toolkit focuses on establishing a “Cyber Leader” within the organization. Being a cyber leader does not require technical expertise, but rather an ability to change the culture of your organization and to understand the business case for investing time and money in making their organization cyber ready.

CRI has also developed a ransomware guide for SMEs that CISA has distributed to its stakeholders, as well as a series of guides helping small businesses secure their remote workforces during the pandemic and beyond.

About the Cyber Readiness Institute

The Cyber Readiness Institute is a non-profit initiative of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE). CRI convenes business leaders from across sectors and geographic regions to share resources and knowledge that inform the development of free cybersecurity tools for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Institute seeks to advance the cyber readiness of SMEs to improve the security of global value chains. Our Cyber Readiness Program is a practical, step-by-step online guide that is available in Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Japanese. To find out more about CRI and to access our Cyber Readiness Program and series of Remote Work Resource Guides, please visit www.becyberready.com.