The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its first-ever International Strategic Plan this week, which covers the 2025-2026 period and aims to serve as a complement to the agency’s first comprehensive strategic plan published two years ago.
The new plan outlines how CISA will engage international partners to strengthen the security and resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure.
CISA said the plan aligns with the White House’s April 2024 National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience.
“In following this plan, CISA will improve coordination with our partners and strengthen international relationships to reduce risk to the globally interconnected and interdependent cyber and physical infrastructure that Americans rely on every day,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said in an Oct. 29 press release.
CISA issued its first comprehensive strategic plan in September 2022, covering 2023-2025. That plan set forth four main goals of cyber defense, risk reduction and resilience, operational collaboration, and agency unification.
Similarly, the international plan outlines three goals for CISA to address the ever-changing and dynamic challenges facing the United States and its international partners: bolster the resilience of foreign infrastructure on which the United States depends; strengthen integrated cyber defense; and unify agency coordination of international activities.
“Through the goals and objectives outlined in this CISA International Strategic Plan – in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of State, and partners across the interagency, and in accordance with U.S. national security, economic, and foreign policy priorities – CISA will assess and prioritize critical infrastructure dependencies and partner with foreign entities to advance CISA’s homeland security mission,” the plan says.
CISA has ramped up its international work in recent years, including through its Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC). The JCDC – established by Congress in 2021 – aims to reduce cyber risk through continuous operational collaboration between trusted partners in the public and private sectors.
CISA said the JCDC is partnering and sharing information with organizations across the globe – with over 150 partners overseas.
“Robust and trusted international partnerships serve as a force multiplier across the spectrum of global competition,” CISA says in the plan. “Just as our threats and adversaries adapt to and shape the cyber and physical security environment, CISA will continue to evolve to fulfill the vision of a secure and resilient infrastructure for the American people – this CISA International Strategic Plan establishes a proactive path to achieve that vision.”
