The Department of Homeland Security‘s cyber assessment team will extend its cyber risk assessment activities beyond information technology systems to include national critical infrastructure and operational technology, Federal News Radio reported Wednesday.
The National Cybersecurity Assessments and Technical Services team will get an expanded role as part of an ongoing reorganization effort of DHS’Â National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.
“If there were three different groups doing [operational technology] assessments, now they are realigned under NCATS,” NCATS Director Rob Karas told Federal News Radio in an interview.
“We are getting the industrial control systems, which do the design and architecture reviews, the Network Architecture Verification and Validation review and Industrial Control Systems-Computer Emergency Readiness Team Cyber Security Evaluation Tool assessments,” Karas added.
Don Benack, cybersecurity assurance program manager for NCATS, noted that the team can also expand its other functions such as risk and vulnerability assessments, remote penetration testing and cyber hygiene scanning to cover more networks and systems.
NCATS conducts 38 million scans of internet addresses daily and provides reports on critical, high, medium and low vulnerabilities facing 615 government and industry customers, according to Karas.
