White House Launches a New Cybersecurity Push Focusing Electricity Sector

The White House has announced the deployment of the first pilot program to improve the nation's electricity infrastructure's cybersecurity, the initiative that focuses on industrial control systems. The pilot is being managed by the Department of Energy and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. This will assist owners and operators in modernizing cybersecurity defenses, including enhancing detection, mitigation, and forensic capabilities.

This public-private partnership effort launched by the Department of Energy is expected to publish a wide-ranging executive order that predominantly focuses on cybersecurity. The visibility of these systems will be significant so that the threshold of success they seek from a cyber perspective will be at its best. The efforts by the officers at the White House are complemented by many directors who work at CISA.

Besides, a DHS cyber print focused on industrial control systems, and scheduled to begin this summer, will consider risks arising from using computer-operated physical systems to deliver infrastructure, including water, electricity, and natural gas. The goal of these DHS cyber sprints is to complement the 100-day plans being led by the Biden-Harris administration and coordinated out of the White House by making a national call to action for control system cybersecurity.