The Week Ahead: CISA convenes town halls to inform incident reporting rules; Officials gather for OT conference

Source Summary

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is holding four town halls throughout the week to get feedback on final rules to establish a mandatory incident reporting regime for critical infrastructure owners and operators, while the Institute for Security and Technology joins forces with ICS Village for a conference focused on operational technology. The town halls will inform final rules to implement the 2022 Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure, which directed CISA to create a regime to report cyber incidents within 72 hours and 24 hours for a ransom payment. The agency released in April 2024 a notice of proposed rulemaking laying its plans, which received significant feedback from industry players and lawmakers. The series kicks off today with the first town hall as a general session. On Tuesday, the town hall is seeking feedback from stakeholders in eight critical infrastructure sectors: communications; dams; emergency services; food and agriculture; government facilities; healthcare and public health; transportation; and water and wastewater. The Wednesday session offers an opportunity for all stakeholders to provide feedback. The last town hall is on Thursday and focuses on the remaining eight other critical infrastructure sectors: chemical; commercial facilities; critical manufacturing, the defense industrial base; energy; financial services; information technology and; nuclear reactors, materials and waste. CISA explained in a Federal Register notice areas where the agency would like to get additional feedback. The town halls were originally scheduled for March but were delayed due to the most recent Department of Homeland Security shutdown. The Critical Effect conference hosted by IST and the ICS Village is on Wednesday and Thursday. CISA Acting Director Nick Andersen provides a keynote to kick off the conference on Wednesday, following welcoming remarks from Josh Corman, executive in residence for public safety and resilience at IST, and Bryson Bort, co-founder of ICS Village and a senior adjunct technical advisor at IST. IST senior vice president of policy Nick Leiserson moderates a Wednesday panel to get Capitol Hill perspectives on operational technology cybersecurity. The speakers are House Homeland Security staffers Kevin Block and Mireya Jurado and Alan Quinn, a professional staff member for the House Science Committee. The Wednesday also includes Matt Rogers, industrial control systems lead at CISA, who will present on the agency’s CI Fortify initiative and other sessions on strengthening cybersecurity in water utilities and IST’s UnDisruptable27 initiative. Philanthropist Craig Newmark opens the conference on Thursday with a keynote. Virginia Wright, program manager at Idaho National Laboratory, is scheduled to present and the authors behind a report on securing the electrotech stack are participating in a panel. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the Senate Homeland Security Committee is holding a confirmation hearing on Wednesday for several nominees including new chiefs for the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also convening a confirmation hearing on Wednesday for Walter Clayton to serve as the next Director of National Intelligence. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology is meeting Tuesday and Wednesday at the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. NIST Director Arvind Raman provides opening remarks on Tuesday. Julie Chua, chief of the Applied Cybersecurity Division, and Jon Boyens, acting chief of the Computer Security Division, are scheduled to provide an update on NIST’s cybersecurity activities. The Wednesday agenda includes a standards update from Heather Evans, NIST senior advisor for economic security, and Dana Leaman, director of the Standards Coordination Office. Defense One’s Tech Summit on Tuesday features Joseph Jewell, assistant secretary of defense for science and technology, and speakers from the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Defense Innovation Unit. The Atlantic Council hosts an event today examining options for the U.S. to counter hybrid warfare and cyber attacks from Russia and China. -- Jaden Beard ([email protected]) Article Type: Daily News Jaden Beard tags: info-sharing Weight: -20