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San Francisco creates ESF 18 to coordinate citywide cybersecurity response
Summary
The city introduced Emergency Support Function 18 (ESF 18) to coordinate cybersecurity threat response and department-level COOP cyber appendices; the Department of Technology and emergency-management staff said departments will exercise ransomware and cloud-breach scenarios to test plans.
San Francisco officials announced a new Emergency Support Function, ESF 18, to coordinate the city's response to cybersecurity incidents alongside traditional physical disasters.
Michael Maxman of the Department of Technology told the council that cybersecurity "is the start of the work" and said the city began coordinating across departments in June to create the new ESF 18. He cited recent incidents in neighboring jurisdictions as evidence that cyber emergencies can affect public safety and essential services.
Bijan, the acting Deputy Director for Emergency Management, described how the city developed department-level COOP cyber appendices to bridge technical IT concepts and emergency-management planning. Departments were given two test scenarios—4a ransomware attack and a cloud-based data breach—to exercise their responses, refine plans and feed feedback into the citywide ESF 18 protocol.
Officials said the work aims to ensure departments know when to call the Department of Technology for assistance and how to keep essential functions running during a virtual incident. The city will follow the exercises with revisions to the COOP cyber appendices and additional testing across departments.
