President Trump will hold Cabinet Secretaries and Agency Heads Responsible for Nation’s Cyber Security

President Trump today announced in no uncertain terms that he will hold federal agencies responsible for their own cyber security posture. In a meeting with cyber experts, Trump expressed his commitment to secure the nation’s infrastructure.

“Today I’m convening this meeting to follow through on my promise to secure crucial infrastructure, and the networks that we’ve been talking so much about over the last period of time of the federal government against cyber threats. I will hold my cabinet secretaries and agency heads accountable, totally accountable, for the cybersecurity of their organization, of which we probably don’t have as much, certainly not as much as we should. We must defend and protect federal networks and data. We operate these networks on behalf of the American people, and they are very important and very sacred. We will empower these agencies to modernize their IT systems for better security and other reasons. We will protect our critical infrastructure such as power plants and electrical grids. The electrical grid problem is a problem, but we’ll have it solved relatively soon. We must work with private sector, the private sector is way ahead of government, in this case, to ensure that owners and operators of critical infrastructure have the support they need from the federal government to defend against cyber threats.”

DoD Cyber Security Commitment

Specifically highlighting DoD cybersecurity, Trump stated:

“We’re going to make sure that cybersecurity is central to both our military and the ships, planes, and tanks built by great Americans for our great American military, and our military will become stronger and stronger as we go along.”

What does this mean for government contractors?

Trump’s commitment to IT modernization, specifically cyber security enhancements, will undoubtedly translate into opportunities for contractors. Agencies that have been hesitant to spend large sums on cyber enhancements may now have the motivation they need to pony up the cyber defense dollars. It stands to reason that those at the top will be motivated to spend more to keep themselves away from potential Presidential fury.

Contractors that want to position themselves to take advantage of these opportunities should start by ensuring they won’t be disqualified from Dept. of Defense contracts. Starting December 31, 2017, the DoD will require all contractors to be compliant with NIST 800-171. The list of 110 NIST 800-171 requirements focus on confidentiality of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI).

Complyup offers a comprehensive NIST 800-171 Self-Assessment Platform, complete with easy to understand explanations of each control.