Federal Administration Pursues Unification of Cybersecurity Regulatory Standards
The Biden administration is working to harmonize cybersecurity regulations across federal, state, and international bodies, with a focus on boosting cyber resilience among private sector and critical infrastructure providers.
The administration's approach centers on multi-agency standard-setting, guidance for information sharing, programmatic regulation streamlining, and industry collaboration. Key elements involve collaboration among federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Commerce (DOC), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and others.
One of the main objectives is to develop government-wide cybersecurity and AI technical standards through multi-agency collaboration, aiming to provide voluntary but coherent benchmarks across sectors. The administration is also working on issuing guidance and maintaining information-sharing centers to help private critical infrastructure sectors manage vulnerabilities and share threat intelligence more effectively.
Moreover, the administration is promoting streamlined regulation by cutting extraneous policy requirements in sectors such as semiconductor manufacturing. The Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) is also engaging regularly with industry stakeholders to better understand regulatory pain points and push for regulatory harmonization.
However, progress faces challenges from political shifts and fragmented state-level regulations. The federal government's diminished preemption in areas like AI where states increasingly enact diverse, sector-specific laws, leads to regulatory patchworks that continue to complicate compliance for firms operating across jurisdictions.
The administration has also outlined a comprehensive plan to simplify the reporting process to reduce duplicative disclosure requirements. National Cyber Director Harry Coker Jr. stated that the administration is working on a pilot reciprocity framework to streamline the administrative load on critical infrastructure subsectors.
Industry stakeholders submitted 86 responses to the request for information last August. These responses, representing 11 of the federal government's 16 designated critical infrastructure sectors and including over 15,000 businesses, states, and other organizations, highlighted a lack of cybersecurity regulatory harmonization and reciprocity as a challenge to both cybersecurity outcomes and business competitiveness.
Companies are facing a growing regulatory burden for cybersecurity disclosures from various government bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, New York State, and others. The lack of reciprocity between regulatory agencies makes it cumbersome for companies to comply with multiple regulations, with many concerned about spending countless hours and resources responding to duplicative information requests instead of having those agencies share the provided information.
In conclusion, the Biden administration's efforts to harmonize cybersecurity regulations are aimed at reducing administrative burdens on private sector and critical infrastructure providers, but these efforts are balanced against fragmented state laws and shifting federal policies that collectively impact the administrative burdens on these entities.
- The administration's efforts in harmonizing cybersecurity regulations involve industry collaboration, voluntary technical standards, and guidance for information sharing, aimed at addressing the growing burden of compliance faced by private sector and critical infrastructure providers in the face of diverse regulations from federal, state, and international bodies.
- The Biden administration's plan to streamline the reporting process and establish a reciprocity framework for critical infrastructure subsectors is intended to address the lack of regulatory harmonization and reciprocity, reducing the administrative burden for companies having to comply with multiple regulations from various government bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, New York State, and others.
