Calls for cyber framework harmonization ramp up

When it comes to cybersecurity regulations, businesses and governments must deal with a patchwork of rules and guidelines issued by various agencies, with no one body designated to coordinate the effort overall.

That can mean being forced to follow a confusing web of standards that can change at a moment’s notice, and reporting to a lot of bosses. 

In an opening statement this month before a Senate subcommittee, Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters detailed the number of oversight bodies one sector can face. He noted that railroads may have as many as six different cybersecurity regulators, airlines three and banks, 16.

The complexity creates the need for what is known as cyber framework harmonization, which is being pursued at the federal level and was the focus of the June 5 hearing. Similar work is underway to support cybersecurity harmonization at the state level as well, led partly by the nonprofit State Risk and Authorization Management Program, known as StateRAMP. The voluntary body, which is used in 27 states, authorizes cloud services state governments can use to ensure they satisfy standardized security requirements.

Last month, StateRAMP embarked on an effort to introduce some uniformity to the criminal justice sector—a first for the group in introducing cybersecurity harmonization for a sector. It launched a task force designed to bring together government leaders, vendors and assessors to adapt to standards set by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal Justice Information Services, or CJIS.

The division provides various services for law enforcement, national security, the intelligence community and the public, including background and criminal checks. StateRAMP hopes to create a pathway for cloud products to be CJIS-compliant, and so improve cloud security in the criminal justice sector.

Any harmonization is a big lift, however, especially in an area as complex as criminal justice. But speakers on a recent web episode, “Securing our States: Core Pillars of StateRAMP,” from Route Fifty and The Atlas, said harmonization will make compliance easier in the long term.

“So many of these [rules] compete with each other, and how do you find the resources for them?” said Jessica Van Eerde, StateRAMP’s chief of operations. “You've got to have somebody who can sit there and assess each of these things. CJIS officers in every state have such a heavy lift they have to do with every contract where it applies. So how can we make this easier?”

For the federal government, harmonization is a massive effort. The Government Accountability Office found in a report this month that there is significant work ahead, even as it praised Congress and the Biden administration for the steps it has taken so far, which have partly comprised harmonization’s inclusion in the National Cybersecurity Plan, a request for information on challenges, a memo on its necessity for national security and new legislation.

One of the hurdles to harmonization efforts, the GAO report found, is that there can be many conflicting parameters within cybersecurity rules, which more than half of state officials surveyed said means a great or very great increase in the time and staff hours needed to address those conflicts. The percentage of total requirements with conflicting parameters ranged from 49% to 79%, GAO said.

Participation in StateRAMP offers something of a model, speakers said, for a more harmonious future. Having a set of standards to conform to means that businesses can more easily and efficiently engage and work with multiple governments. And for states, having the assurance of StateRAMP certification means their assessments are more streamlined.

“If we have a standardized approach where you're … having more state governments, more local governments asking [the same] questions, it really helps to have a platform to build from within your program,” said Naomi Ward, Massachusetts’ manager of vendor risk management. “It helps with that heavy lift, and it also makes you a lot more business-friendly. When a business has one place to go to start that process, they don't have to answer those same questions 50 to 100 times later.”

StateRAMP will continue to evolve, Van Eerde said, and the best way to do that is to continue to listen to its members from across the country, respond to their concerns and share best practices.

“We need voices across all levels so that we know how we can improve, how we can make this better,” Van Eerde said. “We want to really be an education and standards community, and the only way we get there is if we have enough of the people in the room telling us what works and what doesn't.”

Van Eerde said CJIS is just the first step for StateRAMP, and there is much more to come on the harmonization front.

“CJIS is where we're at today, but we are looking at all those other frameworks that are on the horizon,” she said. “This is going to be a big goal for StateRAMP, to really improve in that area for everyone.”