Presidential council approves recommendations for cyber-physical resilience | CyberScoop<\/title> <meta name=\"description\" content=\"The advisory council\u2019s new report looks at how to better protect an increasingly digitized infrastructure against systemic failures.\"> <link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/pcast-cyber-physical-critical-infrastructure-resilience\/\"> <meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\"> <meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\"> <meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Presidential council approves recommendations for cyber-physical resilience\"> <meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The advisory council\u2019s new report looks at how to better protect an increasingly digitized infrastructure against systemic failures.\"> <meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/pcast-cyber-physical-critical-infrastructure-resilience\/\"> <meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CyberScoop\"> <meta 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class=\"single-article__category-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/news\/government\/\"> <span>Government<\/span> <\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> The advisory council\u2019s new report looks at how to better protect an increasingly digitized infrastructure against systemic failures. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"single-article__cover-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"single-article__cover\"> <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/presidential-council-approves-recommendations-for-cyber-physical-resilience.jpg?resize=640%2C427&ssl=1\" class=\"single-article__cover-image wp-post-image\" alt decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/presidential-council-approves-recommendations-for-cyber-physical-resilience-2.jpg 1920w, 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(Getty Images) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"single-article__content\">\n<div class=\"single-article__content-inner has-drop-cap\"> <html readability=\"65.881730769231\"><body readability=\"133.77909940527\"><\/p>\n<p>The President\u2019s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on Thursday approved a set of recommendations to improve the resilience of cyber-physical critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/pcast\/members\/\">28-member advisory council<\/a>, made up of scientists, educators, and executives, created the cyber-physical resilience working group in March. The working group, co-lead by Eric Horvitz, chief scientific officer at Microsoft, and Phil Venables, chief information security officer at Google Cloud, developed the report with the goal of finding new strategies to improve resilience. While the report was approved, it will not be released to the public until mid-February on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/pcast\/\">PCAST website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of our modern infrastructure are cyber-physical by nature,\u201d Venables said. \u201cOur society is becoming ever more dependent on an interwoven set of physical and digital technologies, and all of our critical infrastructure depends on these. Whether it\u2019s water, finance, telecommunications, energy, health care and many other sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the report comes amid an ongoing shift in critical infrastructure sectors, which are digitizing and becoming more data-centric in an effort to improve efficiency. New technologies in various critical infrastructure sectors \u2014 such as renewable generation in the electric sector and automation in manufacturing \u2014 can also open up new avenues of attack for hackers if not properly secured. The increasingly interwoven and complex nature of these systems have complicated the understanding of how they impact one another in cases of failure, making them especially difficult to secure.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--inline_1 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe digitization of all aspects of society has made us all dependent on complex and often fragile cyber-physical systems that can easily break down or suffer from cyber-attacks, software glitches, supply chain problems, mechanical failures, natural disasters, or other disruptions,\u201d the working group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/pcast\/briefing-room\/2023\/03\/15\/pcast-initiating-working-group-on-cyber-physical-resilience\/\">wrote in the announcement<\/a> of its launch. \u201cThese breakdowns or attacks can have serious and unpredictable consequences for many sectors, such as banking, energy, transportation, and health care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Venables said that reliability efforts often focus on individual components such as patching or power backups, with the aim that fewer system-wide failures occur. However, reliance on those individual components can actually decrease system-wide resilience by creating bottlenecks or a single point of failure that can have cascading impacts.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, a lack of segmentation in Colonial Pipeline\u2019s IT network led to the precautionary decision to shut down the entire system \u2014 including operational technology \u2014 as the company did not know how widespread the ransomware attack had spread. That decision led to widespread disruption in gas supplies along the East Coast, Venables noted.<\/p>\n<p>The working group, which collaborated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, MITRE, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security, delivered a report that laid out four major recommendations: establish performance goals, bolster and coordinate research and development, break down silos and strengthen government cyber-physical resilience capacity, and develop greater industry accountability.<\/p>\n<p>The first recommendation includes the defining of minimum operating capabilities and delivery objectives. For example, one measurable objective of minimum delivery goals is to ensure that no more than 50,000 people will be without water or food for more than one week. Additional examples of performance goals are leading indicators, such as how long it would take to reboot a system and bring it back into service.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--inline_1 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In order to bolster research and development, the working group recommended that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Security Agency develop a National Critical Infrastructure Observatory to create a knowledge base and tools to better understand infrastructure across sectors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExperts have shared assessments with us that our adversaries likely have a better picture of our nation\u2019s infrastructure and its weaknesses than we do,\u201d Horvitz said. \u201cWe must assess this gap, and close it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In terms of strengthening government cyber-physical resilience, the working group suggested clarifying \u201cthe what and why\u201d of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisa.gov\/topics\/risk-management\/national-critical-functions\">national critical functions list<\/a>, which is a framework that contains vital services from the federal and private sector, including the ability to supply water or hold elections.<\/p>\n<p>The goal is \u201cto make sure that we have a more cohesive and consistent framework to understand what are the most important parts of our infrastructure, so we can direct the right focus and energy on that,\u201d Venables said.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the sector risk management agencies should have better funds, staffing, and additional authorities to direct minimum standards. Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency <a href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/epa-calls-off-cyber-regulations-for-water-sector\/\">lost a battle for cybersecurity audits in sanitation surveys<\/a> after three Republican-led states and water trade groups said the agency overstepped its authority.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--inline_1 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Cyber Safety Review Board should also seek additional resources to create a \u201clarger and more permanent staff\u201d to take on more reviews, the working group recommended. A panel of experts during a Senate hearing on the Cyber Safety Review Board this week <a href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/csrb-hearing-authority-transparency\/\">levied harsher criticism<\/a>, noting that the board lacks both the authority and independence it needs to effectively investigate major hacks.<\/p>\n<p>Another recommendation was for greater accountability for private sector executives, as industry makes up the vast majority of critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFundamentally, we believe the tone at the top from executives can amplify the resources in the ranks that are needed in these organizations to drive that increased resilience,\u201d Venables said.<\/p>\n<p><\/body> <\/p>\n<footer class=\"single-article__footer\" readability=\"1.4237288135593\">\n<div class=\"author-card\" readability=\"9\">\n<div class=\"author-card__avatar\">\n<figure class=\"author-card__image-wrap\"> <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-card__image\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/presidential-council-approves-recommendations-for-cyber-physical-resilience-1.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\" alt=\"Christian Vasquez\"> <\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><h4 class=\"author-card__name\">Written by Christian Vasquez<\/h4>\n<p> Christian covers industrial cybersecurity for CyberScoop News. He previously wrote for E&E News at POLITICO covering cybersecurity in the energy sector. 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{"id":2384,"date":"2024-01-18T22:21:44","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T22:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/?p=78814"},"modified":"2024-01-18T22:21:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T22:21:44","slug":"presidential-council-approves-recommendations-for-cyber-physical-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/2024\/01\/18\/presidential-council-approves-recommendations-for-cyber-physical-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential council approves recommendations for cyber-physical resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"