Today, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo joined President Biden, senior Administration officials and private sector leaders to discuss how to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and foster stronger collaboration across the public and private sector to address cybersecurity challenges.

As part of the summit, Secretary Raimondo and Small Business Administrator Isabel Guzman met with business leaders from technology and insurance industries and committed to working with industry and other agencies to strengthen efforts to build enduring cybersecurity.

“Addressing growing cybersecurity threats is a top priority for the Biden-Harris Administration, and it is critical that we improve our nation’s cybersecurity efforts across both the public and private sectors,” said Secretary Raimondo. “The time is now for a comprehensive effort to address today’s pressing challenges and reduce future risks.”

“Today’s discussion with public and private sector leaders underscored that we cannot tackle cybersecurity challenges in silos,” Secretary Raimondo continued. “Businesses and government must work together to prioritize cybersecurity efforts, share best practices, develop a strong cybersecurity workforce, and launch innovative ideas that modernize our defenses at home. The Commerce Department will expand our work to collaborate with industry to understand current security challenges, provide guidance and best practices, and improve our nation’s cybersecurity.”

Additionally, today the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a new effort to develop a framework to improve the security and integrity of the technology supply chain. This effort will help build and assess secure technology, as well as evaluate other technology including open-source software. Following NIST’s established practices with existing cybersecurity and privacy frameworks, the process to develop the framework will be transparent and open to participation by private industry.

“NIST looks forward to partnering with industry and others to tackle the pressing challenges of securing the technology supply chain,” said James K. Olthoff, who is performing the non-exclusive functions and duties of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director, NIST. “Based on our technical expertise and our established open processes, we can jointly build a framework that will offer sound technical, trusted, practical solutions to help the nation better manage cybersecurity risks.”

The initiative will rely on private companies of all sectors and sizes, as well as government and academia, to contribute to the development of usable and effective domestic and global supply chain risk management practices. The process aims to reflect lessons learned from the past and current joint efforts to improve the way in which cybersecurity risks are managed – especially as they relate to supply chains involving smaller organizations, which frequently face special cybersecurity-related challenges. From the outset, NIST will include a special focus on promoting the development and adoption of international standards that will lead to global use of the approaches and solutions developed as a result of this partnership.