February 3, 2017

This week the White House unexpectedly canceled the signing of a cybersecurity executive order after meeting with White House cyber staffers, top government cyber officials and a handful of people from outside the government.

The executive order was supposed to be issued on January 31 and include a directive for federal agencies to adopt the NIST cybersecurity framework (which have been repeatedly breached in recent years) but following the meeting, the executive order was scrapped without explanation.

Separate but related, legal experts are predicting that with President Trump’s recent actions to relax the regulatory environment, states may take it into their own hands to implement more aggressive data security laws. As a result, we may see mores states seek to implement stricter state-wide legislation similar to New York’s recent proposed cybersecurity rule.

The Council views this as unwelcome as the existing maze of state data security laws and regulations already makes it a daunting task to keep your business and your clients in compliance. It is why The Council is a proponent of federal breach notification legislation that could preempt state and local laws.

We are certainly hopeful the new Congress will address this but, in the meantime, we encourage Council members to tap into our continuously updated library of state-by-state data security laws and regulations designed to take the confusion out of the compliance equation. For login help, please email robert.boyce@ciab.com

Request for Comments:

Lastly, NIST requests comments on a proposed update to the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (“the Framework”). This Request for Comments (RFC) is meant to facilitate coordination with, “private sector personnel and entities, critical infrastructure owners and operators, and other relevant industry organizations.”

Comments are due April 10, 2017, so please email robert.boyce@ciab.com with input by April 1.

The proposed update and comments to the Framework can be reviewed at http://www.nist.gov/cyberframework.

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