The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) introduced its inaugural international strategic plan, a roadmap for strengthening global partnerships against cyber threats.

The initiative aims to enhance critical infrastructure resilience, secure global supply chains and improve intelligence sharing with international cyber authorities.

In alignment with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and other interagency partners, CISA aims to assess critical infrastructure dependencies and strengthen global partnerships.

Collaborating with U.S. law enforcement, the State Department and intelligence agencies, CISA seeks to establish a more unified global approach to cyber defense and coordinate protection strategies across borders to build a more secure digital ecosystem.

The plan sets three primary goals: Enhancing the resilience of foreign infrastructure critical to the U.S., fortifying integrated cyber defense and streamlining agency coordination on international efforts.

To mitigate supply chain risks, CISA is emphasizing transparency and accountability with international vendors.

By enforcing stringent assessments and requiring detailed disclosures from software, hardware and communication suppliers, CISA aims to identify and address potential vulnerabilities before they can impact U.S. systems.

The agency is also promoting the adoption of secure-by-design principles across the supply chain, setting higher standards for software and hardware security throughout the lifecycle.

The CISA’s inaugural international strategy is seen by many IT security professionals as a significant milestone in the global fight against cyber threats.

Cybersecurity as Team Sport

Casey Ellis, founder and advisor at Bugcrowd, said building alliances for building a secure international digital ecosystem is “absolutely critical”, noting cybersecurity and, specifically cyber defense, are team sports with many players.

“While a lot of progress has been made on sharing by default, actionable steps and goals are needed to normalize this,” he said.

From his perspective, the focus on Asia-Pacific cybersecurity is quite timely.

“The increasing boldness out of China continues to raise the urgency and the stakes for a harmonized cyber defense strategy,” Ellis said.

James Scobey, CISO at Keeper Security, said the recognition that U.S. critical infrastructure has interdependencies on foreign assets, systems and networks is vital.

“Cyber resilience requires fulsome, global collaboration and coordination,” he explained.

He said by focusing on international collaboration, CISA is expanding pathways for shared threat intelligence, standardized security practices and a collective approach to digital resilience.

“The expectation is to see increased information-sharing frameworks, coordinated responses to global cyber incidents and greater support for cybersecurity infrastructure among allied nations,” Scobey said.

He added the secure-by-design initiative has laid a strong foundation for supply chain security, encouraging organizations to prioritize security within their development lifecycle.

“Its emphasis on proactive risk management and structured deployment has already driven improvements in software reliability and trust,” he said.

Unified Standards for Global Implementation

For wider global adoption, Scobey said the CISA could increase support for cross-border training and establish unified standards that can be implemented globally.

He added aligning resources and guidelines internationally would further advance secure-by-design principles, encouraging broader compliance and reducing vulnerabilities on a global scale.

“Adoption of secure by design could be further increased with inclusion into federal procurement standards,” Scobey said.

John Terrill, CISO of Phosphorus Cybersecurity, said the CISA appears to have been thoughtful in how they structured this plan with measurable progress in their goals and sub-goals.

“No one knows what the outcomes are going to be yet, but I suspect the initial public announcements will resemble some of the recent joint operations taking down bad actors and botnets globally,” he said.

He pointed out the nature of cyber-attacks is that they exist outside of physical borders while the threat actors themselves do not.

Terrill said by leveraging the capabilities and geography of international partners with American intelligence and cyber expertise, this kind of coordination could be a force multiplier for detecting and deterring bad actors.

“As we’ve seen in kinetic environments all over the world, the necessity to work in conjunction with our partners has never been more important,” he said. “Applying this successful strategy to the cyber domain is an intuitive idea.”