The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the leading association representing the manufacturers and suppliers of high-tech communications networks, today released specific recommendations for achieving effective cybersecurity policy. In its new report, TIA urges Congress to avoid heavy-handed regulations and instead focus on greater information-sharing, critical infrastructure investments and voluntary public-private partnerships.

To access the full TIA report, “Securing the Network: Cybersecurity Recommendations for Critical Infrastructure and the Global Supply Chain,” click . here.   “The rapidly evolving ICT industry is creating jobs and playing a vital role in economic growth in the U.S. and around the globe,” said TIA President Grant Seiffert. “It is essential that cybersecurity policy maintains the flexibility needed to foster growth and opportunity, while protecting critical systems. Our report outlines the dangers of burdensome regulation and offers specific recommendations for effectively securing cyberspace.”

Figure 1: Department of Energy, PNNL, Technology Security Assessment for Capabilities and Applicability in Energy Sector Industrial Control Systems. The ongoing modernization of the electric grid, as one example, has had and will continue to have far-reaching benefits including: enabling the integration of intermittent energy from solar and wind sources into the grid, enabling the integration of electric vehicles, making possible distributed generation and reducing line loss among a host of other benefits.[1]

In the report released today, TIA states, “Imposing rigid regulatory requirements—requirements that by their nature will be unable to keep up with rapidly evolving technologies and threats—would require industry to focus on obsolete security requirements rather than facing the actual threat at hand, effectively making systems less secure.

Instead, the key to improving the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure is to strengthen the broader cyber ecosystem that enables rapid information sharing, enhances public private partnerships, and provides sufficient investment…”

  TIA’s report offers six key recommendations for policymakers: 

• Efforts to improve cybersecurity should leverage public-private partnerships as an effective tool for collaboration on addressing current and emerging threats.
• The U.S. government should enable and stimulate greater cyber threat information sharing between the public and private sector.
• Policymakers and regulators should address economic barriers for owners and operators of critical infrastructure to secure cyberspace.
• Congress should prioritize federal research funding for ICT and specifically cybersecurity research and development.
• A global industry necessarily requires a global approach to address cybersecurity concerns.
• A global supply chain can only be secured through industry-driven adoption of best practices and global standards.