The city of El Paso has routinely partnered with agencies including the local university and area law enforcement to boost its knowledge base and services. Collaboration can save time, money and effort through partnering with departments, area governments and private-sector partners.
During November’s Texas IT Leadership Forum,* El Paso CISO Ernesto Arriola spoke about these partnerships and sharing information, particularly on cybersecurity.
A true multi-agency collaboration, the city's Fusion Center brings together multiple municipal and federal agencies. “The El Paso Fusion Center – Multi Agency Tactical Response Information eXchange (MATRIX) serves as an all-crimes and all-hazards tactical information and intelligence hub for the El Paso Police Department and the region. This integrated, multidisciplinary information-sharing network is a collaborative between local, state and federal agencies in El Paso and Dona Ana County, N.M.,” according to its website.
“We share our expertise, resources and provide training,” Arriola said. “They share their individual resources, they learn cybersecurity, share threat intelligence and help us spread the message. Any of the information that we’re getting, we’re able to share these alerts, for example, documentation shared across the region, shared across different organizations.”
“Everybody is siloed, there’s a lack of threat information sharing,” he continued. “I think by building those collaborations, tapping into the community and the network that the Fusion Center already has access to [enables] us to expand our capabilities as far as threat intelligence. That helps us … get across those silos.”
“As far as people process, they’re benefiting because there is a lack of initiatives to train people in cybersecurity, so we’re providing that. There are some challenges, of course. We have to collaborate ... constantly meeting and reaffirming those relationships.”
“Building a relationship is really important. Part of what we do is we have biweekly meetings. We treat [someone from a different agency] as one of our own, we say 'hey, you know what, you're part of our team.' We’re going to discuss our projects, we’re going to discuss what we’re doing, and we build that relationship.”
Collaboration requirements Arriola touched upon include:
- Regular communication via committees, one-on-ones and other venues
- Understanding the needs, constraints and concerns of those with whom you work
- Knowing who brings what expertise to the table
- Knowing what problem requires a solution
- Commitment
“We have our health department, and they offer support for the entire county, townships, neighboring state; we have a lot of city’s health and public safety, our fire department as well, emergency management. So within that space, we have a lot of interconnectivity, so it’s to our benefit, and to my benefit, to extend our security best practices, our training, our education, collaboration and guidance.”
Arriola shared that collaboration does take time and effort.
“You have to continue because if you stop, just like anything else, it doesn’t flourish.”
*The IT Leadership Forum is put on by Government Technology, a sister publication of Industry Insider — Texas.
