On March 2, the Biden-Harris Administration released a National Cybersecurity Strategy aimed at securing a safe and secure digital ecosystem for all Americans that aligns with American values. The strategy involves fundamental shifts in how roles, responsibilities, and resources are allocated in cyberspace, including shifting the burden of cybersecurity away from individuals, small businesses, and local governments onto organizations that are best positioned to reduce risks for all of us.
The National Cybersecurity Strategy is centered around five key pillars that aim to strengthen cybersecurity and encourage collaboration. These pillars include the defense of critical infrastructure, the dismantling of cyber criminals, the shaping of market forces to promote security and resilience, investment in a resilient future, and the forging of international partnerships. The strategy strives to ensure the privacy and security of personal data, reduce technical vulnerabilities, prioritize cybersecurity research and development, and establish joint preparedness and response with international partners. The Office of the National Cyber Director is spearheading the implementation of this strategy.
The Pillars
Pillar 1 – Defend Critical Infrastructure: The National Cybersecurity Strategy aims to make critical infrastructure and essential services more available and resilient by expanding minimum cybersecurity requirements in key sectors. The strategy also aims to reduce the burden of compliance by harmonizing regulations, facilitating public-private collaboration, and modernizing federal networks while updating incident response policy.
Pillar 2 – Disrupt & Dismantle Threat Actors: The National Cybersecurity Strategy aims to render malicious cyber actors incapable of threatening national security or public safety by leveraging all instruments of national power. The strategy aims to use all national power tools to disrupt adversaries, including working with private companies in scalable ways to achieve this goal.
Additionally, the strategy focuses on addressing the ransomware threat by implementing a comprehensive Federal approach and working in collaboration with international partners to tackle the issue.
Pillar 3 – Shape Market Forces to Drive Security & Resilience: The National Cybersecurity Strategy has a focus on shaping market forces to drive security and resilience in the digital ecosystem. The strategy aims to place responsibility on those who can best reduce risk and shift the consequences of poor cybersecurity away from the most vulnerable in order to make the digital ecosystem more trustworthy.
The strategy wants to achieve this by protecting people’s privacy and security, making software safer, and using government funding to support secure and long-lasting infrastructure. By implementing these measures, The National Cybersecurity Strategy intends to create a more secure and trustworthy digital ecosystem for everyone.
Pillar 4 – Invest in a Resilient Future: To foster a resilient future, The National Cybersecurity Strategy plans to make strategic investments and coordinate collaborative action. The aim is for the US to lead the world in the innovation of secure and resilient next-generation technologies and infrastructure. This includes reducing systemic technical vulnerabilities in the foundation of the Internet and across the digital ecosystem while making it more resilient against transnational digital repression.
Moreover, the strategy gives precedence to research and development in cybersecurity for emerging technologies like post-quantum encryption, digital identity solutions, and sustainable energy infrastructure. The strategy also focuses on developing a diverse and robust national cyber workforce.
Pillar 5 – Forge International Partnerships to Pursue Shared Goals: To pursue shared goals and promote responsible state behavior in cyberspace, The National Cybersecurity Strategy seeks to forge international partnerships. The strategy’s objective is to discourage irresponsible behavior in the digital world by making it expensive and unpopular. It also aims to work with other countries that have similar goals to address threats to the digital ecosystem. This will involve preparing together, responding to threats together, and imposing costs on those who behave irresponsibly.
Moreover, the United States wants to enhance the ability of its partners to protect themselves against cyber threats, both in normal situations and during emergencies. Lastly, the US plans to collaborate with its allies and partners to create dependable and safe global supply chains for information, communication, operational technology products, and services.
Implementing the National Cybersecurity Strategy at the Local Level
Local and state governments can look to the Biden cybersecurity strategy as a model for implementing similar measures at the local level. The strategy presents a complete plan for improving cybersecurity and resilience in essential services and critical infrastructure, safeguarding the privacy and security of personal data, and developing international collaborations to achieve common objectives.
One of the primary pillars of the strategy is focused on defending critical infrastructure. This involves establishing minimum cybersecurity requirements for critical sectors, enabling public-private collaboration, and modernizing federal networks. Local and state governments can take similar actions to safeguard critical infrastructure within their jurisdictions. This may include collaborating with private sector partners to establish minimum cybersecurity standards and developing incident response plans to quickly respond to potential cyber threats.
Investing in a resilient future is another essential aspect of the strategy. This includes reducing technical vulnerabilities, prioritizing research and development in cybersecurity, and building a strong and diverse cyber workforce. Local and state governments can follow this lead by emphasizing cybersecurity research and development, investing in secure and durable next-generation technologies and infrastructure, and creating programs to attract and develop cyber talent.
By adopting measures based on the Biden cybersecurity strategy, local and state governments can strengthen their cybersecurity and resilience, and help contribute to a safer and more secure digital ecosystem.
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To summarize, the Biden-Harris Administration unveiled the National Cybersecurity Strategy with five pillars to ensure digital security. These pillars assign new responsibilities, roles, and resources to safeguard critical infrastructure, discourage cybercrime, prioritize security, invest in the future, and establish global partnerships. Local governments can adopt this model to enhance cybersecurity and create a safer digital environment.
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