FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
What is an ISAC?
Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) are non-profit, primarily private sector, member-driven organizations specific to critical infrastructure sectors and subsectors such as health, finance, transportation and energy.
Established in 1998, they help critical infrastructure owners and operators protect their facilities, personnel, and customers from cyber and physical security threats and other hazards. They collect, analyze, and disseminate timely, actionable threat information to their members and provide tools to mitigate risks and enhance resiliency.
ISACs have broad reach within their sectors, communicating critical information far and wide to maintain sector-wide situational awareness. They also collaborate with each other and other partners through the National Council of ISACs.
What does Health-ISAC do?
Launched in 2010, Health-ISAC – Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center – is a non-profit, private sector member-driven organization focused on empowering trusted relationships in the global healthcare industry to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber and physical security events so that Members can focus on improving health and saving lives.
The community shares timely, actionable, and relevant information including intelligence on threats, incidents, and vulnerabilities. Data such as indicators of compromise, tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) of threat actors, advice and best practices, mitigation strategies, and other valuable material is shared via machine to machine and human to human.
Health-ISAC also fosters the building of relationships and networking and supports preparedness through global summits and regional educational events, trainings, webinars, and workshops. Working groups and committees focus on topics and activities of importance to the sector and produce white papers, create resource libraries and present at events.
What is Health-ISAC’s Threat Operations Center (TOC)?
The Threat Operations Center (TOC) provides in-depth, wide-reaching analysis of actionable cyber and physical threat intelligence to Members to create situational awareness, inform risk-based decision-making, and support timely action against phishing, ransomware and other threats.
Curated by the health sector for the health sector, TOC-produced intelligence includes:
- pre-public alerts
- targeted alerts
- vulnerability and threat bulletins
- benchmarking surveys
- situational awareness and physical security reports
- daily cyber headlines
- webinars for up-to-the minute updates on current threats
Who belongs to Health-ISAC?
Health-ISAC membership is a diverse community of global Health Sector organizations of all sizes. To join, you must be a health sector stakeholder. Members include healthcare providers and insurers to pharmaceutical organizations and biotech companies to medical device manufacturers.
How much does membership cost?
Health-ISAC is a non-profit organization entirely led by and sustained by the private sector. The annual Membership rate is determined by the Membership tier, based on an organization’s business structure and annual revenues. Membership benefits are identical across all tiers.
Does any government agency have access to Health-ISAC information?
The Health-ISAC Threat Information Sharing Portal (HTIP) and Member-submitted information remains the property of the Health-ISAC membership. It is not shared with any outside entity. On occasion whenever a sector wide threat is apparent, de-identified cybersecurity and physical security threat and vulnerability information is shared with appropriate intelligence agencies for mitigation and incident response purposes as permitted. This information is handled in accordance with the Traffic Light Protocol, a set of designations used to ensure that sensitive information is shared with the appropriate audience.
What is TLP (Traffic Light Protocol)?
TLP is a set of designations used to ensure that sensitive information is shared with the appropriate audience.