The Director for Cyber Policy and Programs at the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) said this week to be on the lookout in the coming weeks for ONCD’s formal implementation plan on the National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS).
“Effective strategies – especially if they’re aspirational – also have to be implementable,” Tanya Simms said during day two of NVIDIA’s Developer Conference. “Within the coming weeks, we will actually be coming out with our formal implementation plan.”
Simms emphasized that the plan “will capture key outcomes and key deliverables and with clear accountable parties across the different departments and agencies at the Federal level.”
The Biden administration released its much-anticipated National Cybersecurity Strategy on March 2, with multiple focus points including continuing efforts to improve security in already-regulated critical infrastructure sectors, a high-level goal of shifting more security responsibility onto providers of tech products and services, and a robust focus on using “all tools of national power” to go after attackers.
The White House said that implementation of the strategy is “already underway” and being coordinated by the ONCD, which produced the strategy.
“We’ve already been moving forward on various fronts [of the NCS],” Simms reiterated during the NVIDIA panel.
She explained that President Biden’s recent budget proposal reflects the administration’s priority to implement the strategy by putting money where their mouth is on confronting global challenges and keeping the country safe.
Simms also mentioned three funding bills Biden already has in place that bolster the pillars of the NCS.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, for example, focuses on critical infrastructure resiliency – with cybersecurity as a key piece. Simms also shouted out the cybersecurity state and local grant program which helps different states boost their local defenses against cyber threats. Finally, she mentioned the CHIPS and Science Act which helps fund research and development efforts in America.
Aside from the funding, Simms said that collaboration with the private sector has played – and will continue to play – a major role in implementation of ONCD’s cyber strategy.
“When it comes to private-public collaboration, ONCD is using our convening authority at the White House,” Simms said. “We’ve been pulling together private sector CEOs in the different critical infrastructures, bringing them to the White House to share information with them and to really have a dialogue about the information they are receiving.”
“To have that stakeholder relationship, and also that stakeholder conversation, so we’re not just issuing policies – we’re not talking about determining next best steps when it comes to cyber from a top-down approach,” she added.
Simms also mentioned during the NVIDIA webinar that ONCD is working on developing the first National Cybersecurity Workforce Strategy set to be unveiled in the coming weeks.
