The Biden administration should delegate the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to lead the development of critical infrastructure performance goals to strengthen U.S. cyber-physical resilience, according to a new report.

The recommendations were published Tuesday by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which evaluated the administration’s strategy for securing the country’s critical infrastructure.

While the government is making good progress on leveraging private-public partnerships for resilience, the report holds that agencies can push the envelope further by directing their sector risk management agencies, or SRMAs, to identify minimum viable delivery objectives and create a National Critical Infrastructure Observatory to assess the security of essential sectors.

The administration should also mobilize SRMAs and sector coordinating councils to impose greater accountability on CEOs and industry executives when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure virtually and physically, PCAST recommended. 

Wash100 inductee David McKeown, deputy chief information officer for cybersecurity and senior information security officer of the Department of Defense, will be the opening keynote speaker at the Potomac Officers Club’s Cyber Summit this year. The event will kick off on June 6, and registration is now open.

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to develop regulations to protect biometric, financial, genomic, personal health data and other sensitive personal information of U.S. citizens from access and exploitation by countries of concern.

The EO also requires DOJ to release regulations to improve protection of geolocation data on sensitive government sites, information on military members and other sensitive U.S. government-related data, according to a White House fact sheet published Wednesday.

DOJ should work with the Department of Homeland Security to establish high security standards to prevent countries of concern from accessing U.S. citizens’ data through other commercial means.

Under the new policy, the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services should work together to ensure that federal contracts, grants and awards are not used to facilitate access to sensitive health information of Americans.

The order calls for the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector, also known as Team Telecom, to look at the threats to sensitive personal data of U.S. citizens in its assessment of submarine cable licenses.

The Department of Commerce is now accepting project proposals focused on increasing domestic production of semiconductor packaging substrates.

The notice of funding opportunity, or NOFO, is backed by the CHIPS for America, which earmarked $11 billion for semiconductor research and development, the agency said Wednesday.

The funding opportunity will consider proposals on the development, production and demonstration of advanced packaging substrates and substrate materials which are critical to chip manufacturing. The agency will also select projects on workforce education and training related to substrate production.

“Materials and substrates are foundational to achieving the necessary advances in advanced packaging to ensure U.S. leadership in the global semiconductor ecosystem,” said Laurie Locascio, under secretary of Commerce and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “With this funding opportunity, we are taking the first step toward strengthening domestic advanced packaging approaches so that semiconductor manufacturers can access a full suite of U.S.-based manufacturing capabilities to bring their most innovative solutions to market.”

CHIPS for America will host a briefing on the NOFO on March 1, and its National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program will meet with potential applicants on March 12.