White House is ‘working on version 2.0’ of cyber implementation plan

Chris DeRusha said protecting critical infrastructure is a top priority as the Biden administration updates plans for achieving its cybersecurity objectives.

Less than nine months removed from issuing its highly anticipated national cybersecurity strategy, the Biden administration is working to update the strategy document’s implementation plan, according to a senior White House cybersecurity adviser.

Speaking Thursday at Scoop News Group’s CyberTalks event, Chris DeRusha painted a picture of an evolving document as the Biden administration works to deliver on its cybersecurity goals.

“We’re going to update that implementation plan — it’s not a static thing,” said DeRusha, who also serves as the federal chief information security officer. “We’re already working on version 2.0. As we check off successes, hitting that next public-facing series of commitments, [we want] to make sure that we’re really driving forward progress.”

DeRusha acknowledged that while the strategy “did put forward a positive, attainable vision for getting to a place” where the country can manage cyber-related risks, those threats will not “disappear,” especially when it comes to critical infrastructure.

The cybersecurity strategy builds on President Joe Biden’s May 2021 executive order and proposes a series of reforms aimed at delivering broad improvements to computer security. The administration is working to modernize technology and improve cybersecurity, but DeRusha said on Thursday that modernization alone won’t deliver the security improvements sought by the White House. 

“We know we can’t modernize everything,” DeRusha said. “You can put compensating controls in place, but we have to have visibility on that and assurances that we’re actually managing the risk” to critical infrastructure. 

To that end, DeRusha said the administration is studying the “current operational standing of all the cyber centers” and identifying efficiencies. The results of those inquiries will be analyzed and used to “clean up some of the noise.”

The Biden administration is also working to update the national cyber incident response plan, and DeRusha noted that public-private coordination will be crucial to reacting to critical infrastructure threats together.

There’s been progress on the disruption and dismantling of threat actors as called for in the national strategy, with DeRusha noting that the White House recently hosted 50 countries for a counter ransomware summit that resulted in commitments on information-sharing and not paying ransoms.

DeRusha also said that the Biden administration is “having meaningful conversations” about a federal cyber insurance backstop and remains fully committed to forging more international partnerships on all things cyber.

“We cannot achieve any meaningful progress on managing cyber risk as one nation,” DeRusha said. The White House is “investing in these coalitions … and meaningful cooperation is going to be one of the most important things we do. And this administration is definitely committed to working with our like-minded partners on shared goals.”

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure