U.S. National Cybersecurity Framework Now Available

“Cybersecurity is a matter of homeland security,” said new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, adding “one of the key goals of advancing this nation’s cybersecurity is building trust and relationships between the government and the private sector.”

Johnson referred to the physical attack on the PG&E electrical substation in Northern California last April, when unknown persons fired at 17 large electrical transformers with high powered rifles and severed two sets of telecommunications lines. While PG&E recently announced plans to spend $86 million over the next three years on new physical security features at the largest of its more than 900 substations, Johnson said: “What the public needs to understand is that today the disruption of a critical public service like an electrical substation need not occur with guns and knives. A cyber attack could cause similar, and in some cases far greater damage by taking several facilities offline simultaneously, and potentially leaving millions of Americans in the dark.”