The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is gearing up to release a new white paper on how the Federal government can improve collaboration with industry to bolster the security of the subsea cable network, according to DHS Assistant Secretary for Trade and Economic Security Christa Brzozowski.
During a CSIS event on Dec. 18, Brzozowski previewed the DHS Supply Chain Resilience Center’s (SCRC) forthcoming white paper – developed in close collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – which provides three priority areas for enhanced partnerships with the private sector.
Brzozowski said DHS convened the interagency group for candid discussions with stakeholders across the industry – including owners, operators, manufacturers, builders, equipment vendors, and service providers – on the unique challenges facing the subsea cable industry today and into the future.
“Our intent with these engagements was to ensure that the DHS approach to supply chain resilience is holistic in scope and tightly coordinated with the private sector to co-develop practical mitigations that protect our national and our economic security,” Brzozowski said. “The paper highlights some key takeaways from our engagements with industry and identifies priorities for DHS to exercise one of its core competencies, partnerships and engagements, in support of overall strategic objectives to strengthen and sustain U.S. leadership of international communications infrastructure.”
The DHS leader said they were looking to understand industry’s perspective on the future of subsea communications, especially in the context of competition with foreign adversaries such as China and Russia.
“Given the importance of reliable connectivity to so many aspects of our daily lives and to our national security and the lack of adequate alternative means of communication, we simply cannot allow these adversaries and other untrusted entities to achieve a position of dominance or control over international cable infrastructures,” she said.
Brzozowski continued, “DHS’s recent cable engagements have underscored the criticality of public-private coordination, as well as robust and continuous evaluation of government policies and programs that have a direct impact on subsea cable security and resilience. And it’s been through these engagements and the Federal government’s ongoing efforts that DHS has identified three priority areas for improved coordination and collaboration.”
First, DHS plans to enhance mechanisms for public-private coordination. Brzozowski explained that the subsea cable industry spans multiple critical infrastructure sectors, which means it “does not fit clearly” within U.S. government mechanisms for engaging critical infrastructure owners and operators. She said that while some entities that own and operate U.S. cables systems are represented, other critical bodies are excluded – including those that build, maintain, and equip cable systems.
“There currently exists no forum in which the full scope of the cable industry can effectively collaborate with the U.S. government to identify and address shared challenges. So, as we look forward, DHS will work internally and across the United States government to improve subsea cable industry representation and engagement,” Brzozowski said.
Secondly, DHS is proposing to work to streamline U.S. permitting, licensing, and regulatory processes for subsea cables.
“The problem in this space today is that the regulatory landscape for subsea cables – coupled with increasing permitting timelines and affordability – has had a real impact, as we’ve heard, on the nation’s attractiveness for investments in the new cable systems,” Brzozowski said. “In order to ensure that the United States remains a leader, and the subsea cable industry maintains its national security objectives through continued capacity growth, the regulatory landscape for deploying new cables should be predictable, reliable, and transparent.”
Brzozowski said that DHS will conduct a comprehensive assessment of cable permitting and licensing authorities and pursue opportunities to enable faster, more transparent, and more consistent outcomes of cable licensing to enhance security and resilience.
Finally, the white paper says DHS will work to clarify Federal roles and responsibilities in emergency management and incident response.
“Currently, Federal responsibilities for cable protection, outage reporting, threat intelligence sharing, direct cable operations, and crisis response are coordinated through a variety of mechanisms across multiple departments and across multiple agencies. A clear concept of operations and defined lines of efforts in case of emergencies has not been relayed to industry in a meaningful and collaborative way,” she explained.
“As a path forward, DHS, through CISA, will seek to lead the development of a joint overview of the U.S. government’s operational authorities for subsea cable security and resilience in support of an interagency concept of operation for partnering with interagency owners and operators to secure and repair subsea cable systems in a variety of crisis scenarios,” Brzozowski concluded.
Late last month, the Federal Communications Commission voted to begin what it called a “major, comprehensive review and update of licensing rules for submarine cables” with goals including better protecting that critical communications infrastructure by, among other steps, prohibiting the use of equipment and services sold by companies based in adversarial nations including China and Russia.
