US Still Lacks Federal Cyber Strategy After Decades of Attempts

Jen Easterly (L), then-nominee to be the Director of the Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Chris Inglis, then-nominee to be the National Cyber Director, testify during their confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 10, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

Jen Easterly (L), then-nominee to be the Director of the Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Chris Inglis, then-nominee to be the National Cyber Director, testify during their confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 10, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The United Kingdom, meanwhile, recently updated its approach, crediting strong regulatory measures with significant cyber-risk reduction over recent years.

Despite starts and stops dating back to the early 1990s and frequent references to a national strategy, U.S. cybersecurity remains in jeopardy from the lack of a comprehensive plan that includes accountability to specific outcomes, according to a leading official from the Government Accountability Office.

“The reality is that every administration, honestly since the Clinton administration, has applied effort and priority to trying to coalesce some sort of national strategy—maybe it's in different shapes and forms, may be in several documents or one—but no one has gotten all the way there and we definitely have not gotten to the point of actually executing a strategy,” said Nick Marinos, a director of information technology and cybersecurity at GAO.

Marinos was participating in a Dec. 9 event Government Executive hosted on the discipline of enterprise risk management, something federal agencies are required to practice in the development of their individual priorities. Agencies’ risk management activities are guided by technical guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but Marinos said they should also have a big-picture reference to who’s responsible for what outside of their own operations. 

“Obviously, the scope of [a national strategy] is enormous compared to what a federal agency may have to do to ensure that they can continue their specific mission activities,” Marinos said. “But that also is the reason why it's so critical because it's what each agency ought to be looking at to sort of get its initial instructions when it comes to cybersecurity and what they should be focused on.”

Previous attempts to execute a national strategy have also sought to address the responsibilities of the private sector, which controls the vast majority of U.S. critical infrastructure.Marinos said those lacked crucial checks on the backend. 

“The Trump administration, they did have a national cyber strategy,” he said. “It had an implementation plan that laid out almost 200 specific activities, who was responsible for what and so there were some good bones to it. But when we went in and looked at these documents, we found a lot of the things that we end up seeing when we go to the agency level on cyber risk, which was a lack of clarity on who's ultimately responsible for checking up on whether we were actually fulfilling these activities.”

Marinos noted the emergence this year of the Office of the National Cyber Director as a positive development toward fixing that. And in October, National Cyber Director Chris Inglis released a statement of “strategic intent.” But Marinos said the administration is still missing essential elements for executing an effective plan: goals and outcomes.  

“How do we actually measure progress on things that have such a significant importance to ensuring our nation is protected from cyber threats?” he said. “The national cyber director and their office is ultimately responsible for things like developing that national strategy with the entire federal community and following up to make sure that it's implemented, but we're still waiting for those documents to actually come out and then to see a process for them to actually implement it.”

In contrast to the state of affairs in the U.S., the United Kingdom this month updated a national cyber strategy the government rolled out in 2018. The update took stock of progress from the plan, and notes the government’s intention of doubling down on a regulatory approach that features financial penalties for failure to implement appropriate cyber defenses and report cybersecurity incidents.  

“New regulation has had a positive impact on cyber security, with 82% of organisations saying the improvements they had made were influenced by the introduction of the UK General Data Protection Regulation in 2018,” reads the updated cyber strategy released by the UK’s National Cyber Security Center. “The introduction of the Network and Information Systems Regulations in 2018 also led to designated organisations taking measures to better ensure the security of their networks and information systems, leading to a reduction in the cyber risks posed to essential services and important digital services.”

CISA Director Jen Easterly has consulted closely with Lindy Cameron, her counterpart who leads the UK NCSC, and tweeted that she was excited to read the new plan.

Easterly has also favored the use of fines to enforce private-sector incident reporting

But there’s another crucial element to implementing a national plan—the support of a cooperative legislative body. Even after fines were removed from bipartisan incident reporting legislation, Congress was not able to get the bill past the finish line.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.