DHS replaces CIPAC with ANCHOR-CI for critical infrastructure cyber coordination
A new exemption reopens the channel, but it cannot retroactively restore the threat context operators lost.
TL;DR
According to CyberScoop, DHS is using a July 1 Federal Register notice to create ANCHOR-CI, a CISA-managed replacement for the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council. Critical infrastructure owners, primes, contractors and state and local security officials regain a formal channel for federal threat reviews, vulnerability discussions, zero-day coordination and cross-sector recommendations. The notice leaves the start date unclear, a practical problem after a 14-plus-month shutdown.
According to CyberScoop, DHS is using a Federal Register notice scheduled for July 1 to recreate the sensitive government-industry forum that disappeared when the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, or CIPAC, was shut down more than a year ago. The replacement is the Alliance of National Councils for Homeland Operational Resilience-Critical Infrastructure program, or ANCHOR-CI. CISA will manage it and appoint members from industry, trade associations, state and local governments and other sources.
That matters because CIPAC functioned as an operating channel. CyberScoop describes it as a nerve center where the FBI, CISA, the intelligence community and critical infrastructure owners in sectors such as water, power, internet and telecommunications coordinated on cyberattacks and digital vulnerabilities. DHS says ANCHOR-CI will let federal, state, local, tribal and territorial officials engage private-sector and critical infrastructure representatives to review the threat environment, discuss vulnerabilities and form resilience recommendations.
The legal machinery is the point. The notice says the secretary exempts ANCHOR-CI from the Federal Advisory Committee Act in recognition of the sensitive security and operational-risk discussions involved. The new setup includes sector councils, cross-sector councils for emerging threats such as cyberattacks and zero-day vulnerabilities, critical-infrastructure industry councils and regional coordinating councils.
The policy turn matters because then-Secretary Kristi Noem shut CIPAC during a broader advisory-body purge, and CyberScoop reports that critical infrastructure owners and operators felt blindsided and cut off from federally enabled threat intelligence. The missing piece is timing: DHS has not said when the councils will start or how the new forum will backfill the intelligence gap. For primes, contractors and state CISOs, the first task is to watch CISA's membership process and council activation, because ANCHOR-CI only matters once sensitive threat information moves through it again.
Published ·Deep Fathom