The release of DHS’s Strategic Guidance and National Priorities for U.S Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience for 2024 & 2025 and the announcement of new critical infrastructure Congressional reporting legislation both demonstrate the government’s increased interest in enhancing the nation’s critical infrastructure resilience. This interest is likely due to critical infrastructure becoming a more attractive target for cyber attacks during periods of war, as demonstrated in multiple attacks suffered by Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine War and by Israel in the Israel-Hamas War.

DHS’s strategic guidance calls for focusing on mitigations that would create baseline security and resilience requirements for each sector, encourage the reduction of risk from sectors utilizing shared services, and continue to build resilience, among others. Meanwhile, the proposed Contingency Plan for Critical Infrastructure Act focuses on critical infrastructure sectors’ ability to switch to manual operations in the event of a cyberattack, requiring CISA to report on its efforts to enhance this capability across all sectors. Members are encouraged to review both documents to understand federal concerns, as water and wastewater systems is a high-priority sector. Read more at CyberScoop.