Building National Resilience from the Inside Out

Presented by Carahsoft

Nick Andersen, Acting Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), joined host Francis Rose at TechNet Cyber 2026 to discuss CISA's Homeland Defense Working Group, the CI Fortify initiative, and what it truly means to protect the critical infrastructure that underpins American life.

Andersen opened by describing the Homeland Defense Working Group as a focused, interagency effort to bring together government stakeholders, critical infrastructure owner-operators, and international partners — all united around a single mission: measurably improving national resilience. The group draws on partners across the FBI, U.S. Cyber Command, NSA, and sector risk management agencies, and is structured around a "best athlete" principle — meaning the organization with the strongest relationships and technical capability leads each area of work, regardless of which agency that happens to be.

When it comes to measuring success, Andersen pointed to concrete, quantifiable targets. A defense-critical infrastructure energy company achieving the minimum base load required to deploy forces forward during a crisis is exactly the kind of outcome the working group is designed to produce. "What is that thin red line of what we absolutely need during our worst times in order to be successful?" he asked — a framing he borrowed from Canada's "minimum viable Canada" approach developed in partnership with Five Eyes allies.

CI Fortify, CISA's broader critical infrastructure resilience initiative, is extending that thinking to international partners and original equipment manufacturers, pushing secure-by-design principles into product development before vulnerabilities can take root. Andersen acknowledged the inherent paradox of the mission: making critical infrastructure so reliable that Americans never have to think about it — while simultaneously ensuring the government never stops thinking about it.

Andersen, who came to CISA with deep Pentagon experience, said that background gives him a natural fluency in Department of War mission risk — and helps him translate across the civil-military divide. When asked what a successful tenure at CISA looks like, his answer was personal: being able to look his family in the eye and say the agency took accountability seriously, invested wisely, and demonstrably reduced risk for communities across the country.

Key Takeaways:

• The Homeland Defense Working Group uses a "best athlete" model — leadership of each resilience effort goes to whoever has the strongest relationships and technical capability, not necessarily CISA.
• CI Fortify is extending secure-by-design principles to OEMs and international Five Eyes partners, ensuring resilience is baked into infrastructure from the design phase.
• Success is measured in quantifiable resilience outcomes — such as whether critical energy infrastructure can sustain minimum base load requirements during a national security crisis.