A new Critical Infrastructure Subcommittee has been established by the Cyber Council of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA).
The creation of the delegation was officially announced yesterday along with an overview of the subcommittee's mission.
The main goal of the newly formed assemblage will be to assess cyber-threats to America's critical infrastructure and examine actions taken by the government and industry to secure the nation's essential networks.
Privately owned infrastructure across the defense industrial base and telecommunications, finance, and energy and electric sectors will be evaluated in terms of what impact they could have on national security.
Another goal that the group has been set is the promotion of strategies that will mitigate cyber-threats to select critical infrastructure operations.
Meeting quarterly, the subcommittee also aims to foster a spirit of cooperation by identifying and addressing obstacles to greater public-private collaboration, with a specific focus on how this could be achieved through Sector Coordinating Councils (SCCs), Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), and other forums.
INSA said that the goal of the subcommittee is to also "serve as a forum for government and industry experts to share perspectives, develop new insights, better account for risk, build resiliency, and promote best practices."
Chris Boyer, vice president of global security and technology policy at telecommunications giant AT&T, has been named as the subcommittee's chair.
Vice chair positions have been accepted by Amentum's vice president for mission engineering Rich Johanning and by the CME Group's global information security external engagement team lead, Sydney Jones.
Initial areas that the subcommittee will focus on include threat briefs on cyber-threats to critical infrastructure sectors, securing critical infrastructure supply chains, and expediting the process of securing clearances for critical infrastructure.
They will also get cracking with a look at ways in which the speed of declassification and tearline report publication could be improved to facilitate faster industry response to cyber-threats.
INSA vice president for policy Larry Hanauer said: “It’s critical that government agencies and critical infrastructure operators improve their cybersecurity cooperation and share information on cyber threats more effectively."