Workforce Bulletin

On July 13, 2023, the White House issued the first iteration of its National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan (the “Implementation Plan”), which will be updated annually. The two overarching goals of the Implementation Plan are to address the need for more capable actors in cyberspace to bear more of the responsibility for cybersecurity and to increase incentives to make investments in long-term resilience. The Implementation Plan is structured around the five pillars laid out in the White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy earlier this year, namely: (1) defend critical infrastructure; (2) disrupt and dismantle threat actors; (3) shape market forces to drive security and resilience; (4) invest in a resilient future; and (5) forge international partnerships to pursue shared goals. The Implementation Plan identifies strategic objectives and high-impact cybersecurity initiatives under each pillar and designates the federal agency responsible for leading the initiative to meet each objective. The following summarizes some of the key initiatives included in the Implementation Plan that will directly impact critical infrastructure organizations, including healthcare, energy, manufacturing, information technology and financial services.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) has urged a “Shields Up” defense in depth approach, as Russian use of wiper malware in the Ukrainian war escalates. The Russian malware “HermeticWiper” and “Whispergate” are destructive attacks that corrupt the infected computers’ master boot record rendering the device inoperable. The wipers effectuate a denial of service attack designed to render the device’s data permanently unavailable or destroyed. Although the malware to date appears to be manually targeted at selected Ukrainian systems, the risks now escalate of a spillover effect to Europe and the United States particularly as to: (i) targeted cyber attacks including on critical infrastructure and financial organizations; and (ii) use of a rapidly spreading indiscriminate wiper like the devastating “NotPetya” that quickly moves across trusted networks. Indeed, Talos researchers have found functional similarities between the current malware and “NotPetya” which was attributed to the Russian military to target Ukranian organizations in 2017, but then quickly spread around the world reportedly resulting in over $10 billion dollars in damage.[1] The researchers added that the current wiper has included even further components designed to inflict damage.

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) jointly published a new resource as part of their ongoing efforts to promote awareness of, and help organizations defend against, supply chain risks. The publication, Defending Against Software Supply Chain Attacks, provides recommendations for software customers and vendors as well as key steps for prevention, mitigation and resilience of software supply chain attacks.

Software supply chain attacks occur when a cyber threat actor infiltrates a software ...

Our colleague Stuart M. Gerson at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Health Law Advisor blog that will be of interest to our readers in the technology industry: “NIST Seeks Comments on Cybersecurity Standards for Patient Imaging Devices.”

Following is an excerpt:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST) has announced that it will be seeking industry input on developing “use cases” for its framework of cybersecurity standards related to patient imaging devices. NIST, a component of the Department of Commerce, is the agency assigned to the ...