Armed Services Committees Agree On Final NDAA

The annual defense policy bill creates a new National Cyber Director and addresses other technology issues.

Last week, the negotiators agreed on a final FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that could get passed as early as this week. To no great surprise, President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the annual policy and authorization package for reasons largely unrelated to the Department of Defense and other agencies subject to the bill. It is unclear how the President will respond if Congress ends him the bill and similarly unclear whether Republicans would vote to override a veto. Additionally, the bill might not make it to the White House until around Christmas Day which would complicate the reconvening of Congress to hold override votes.

Nonetheless, big picture, the conferees explained in the Joint Explanatory Statement that conference report to accompany the “William M. “Mac” Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021” (H.R.6395):

• The budget request for national defense discretionary programs within the jurisdiction of the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives for fiscal year 2021 was $731.6 billion. Of this amount, $636.3 billion was requested for base Department of Defense programs, $69.0 billion was requested for overseas contingency operations, $26.0 billion was requested for national security programs in the Department of Energy and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and $314.0 million for defense-related activities.
• The conference agreement would authorize $731.6 billion in fiscal year 2021, including $635.5 billion for base Department of Defense programs, $69.0 billion for overseas contingency operations, $26.6 billion for national security programs in the Department of Energy and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and $494.0 million for defense-related activities.

As always, the bill is replete with provisions to change national security-related technology policy, most of which pertains to the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Intelligence Community (IC). However, anymore, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies also receive policy alterations in the NDAA.

The bill would change the requirements as to when the DOD notifies Congress if it conducts offensive or defensive cyber operations by narrowing the category of such operations. For example, if Cyber Command were to strike a botnet again as it reportedly did in the run up to the election, it would not need to notify Congress, for such an operation is not a foreign terrorist organization or a foreign government unless they may be deemed a “proxy force.” There is a provision extending the liability shield for DOD contractors participating in the Pentagon’s mandated cyber incident reporting system to include compliance with Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement clause 252.204-7012, Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting.

H.R.6395 would tweak the Quadrennial Cyber Posture Review assessments of U.S. statutes, policies, and authorities to manage cyber threats, especially in achieving cyber deterrence.

The DOD would need to set requirements for the periodic, systematic review of the cybersecurity of major weapons systems and related critical infrastructure to ensure the security of these platforms. The Pentagon must also establish a “Strategic Cybersecurity Program” “to ensure that the Department of Defense is always able to conduct the most important military missions of the Department.” This new initiative “shall identify and designate for inclusion in the Program all of the systems, critical infrastructure, kill chains, and processes, including systems and components in development, that comprise the following military missions of the Department of Defense:

• Nuclear deterrence and strike.
• Select long-range conventional strike missions germane to the warfighting plans of United States European Command and United States Indo-Pacific Command.
• Offensive cyber operations.
• Homeland missile defense.

The DOD will need to “develop a standard, comprehensive framework to enhance the consistency, execution, and effectiveness of cyber hunt forward operations” including the criteria used to identify such operations, the roles of various stakeholders in the DOD, pre-deployment planning guidelines, the metrics to measure the success of the operation, and other facets. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency have been deploying more of these teams to other nations to develop partnerships with nations closer to shared cyber adversaries (e.g. Estonia and Montenegro visa vis Russia.) The formalization of this process indicates increased Congressional interest and a desire to regularize the practice.

The DOD must “conduct a review of the Cybersecurity Service Provider and Cyber Mission Force enterprises” to determine where there are gaps and redundancies between DOD systems and those provided by contractors. Presumably such an inventory process would precede the DOD consolidating where it can and expanding where necessary.

The position of DOD Principal Cyber Advisor would be reformed. The Secretary of Defense would name a person to fill this position from the DOD civilian officials confirmed by the Senate. The Principal Cyber Advisor would have the following responsibilities, among others:

• Acting as the principal advisor to the Secretary on military cyber forces and activities.
• Overall integration of Cyber Operations Forces activities relating to cyberspace operations, including associated policy and operational considerations, resources, personnel, technology development and transition, and acquisition.
• Assessing and overseeing the implementation of the cyber strategy of the Department and execution of the cyber posture review of the Department on behalf of the Secretary.

The Principal Cyber Advisor will be tasked with the responsibility for the cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection of the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and must “synchronize, harmonize, de-conflict, and coordinate all policies and programs germane to defense industrial base cybersecurity.” This will encompass the Sector Specific Agency (SSA) responsibilities bestowed on the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy’s purview under Presidential Policy Directive-21, the Obama Administration era document that established the division and oversight of critical infrastructure with an eye towards cyber infrastructure. The Principal Cyber Advisor would also need to examine the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment’s authorities and responsibilities with respect to contracting and cybersecurity. The Principal Cyber Advisor would need to evaluate other facets of the DIB’s cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection housed in different offices in the DOD, suggesting an obvious fracturing of efforts that may be at odds with one another.

The Principal Cyber Advisor and the head of Cyber Command would need to “conduct and complete an assessment on the operational planning and deconfliction policies and processes that govern cyber operations of the Department of Defense.” It appears that Congress would like DOD components to play better together when planning and conducting cyber operations, but this state of affairs is to be expected inside a large bureaucracy with players and entities interested in defending and even expanding their turf.

The DOD must “assess the feasibility and advisability of developing and using speed-based metrics to measure the performance and effectiveness of security operations centers and cyber security service providers in the Department of Defense.”

The DOD must study the feasibility of creating a new DIB information sharing program that would be above and beyond any current incident reporting requirements. Under law and regulation, at present, DIB contractors must report intrusions and incidents within 72 hours, but the language in H.R. 6395 envisions a program of greater information sharing for “cybersecurity purposes.” However, it begs the question as to why the DOD does not already have such a program given the “Cybersecurity Act of 2015” established the template for such programs over five years ago.

The Pentagon would need to “complete an assessment of the feasibility, suitability, definition of, and resourcing required to establish a defense industrial base cybersecurity threat hunting program to actively identify cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities within the DIB.”

The DOD must “assess each Department component against the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) framework and submit to the congressional defense committees a report that identifies each such component’s CMMC level and implementation of the cybersecurity practices and capabilities required in each of the levels of the CMMC framework.” And, for those components that fail to meet the “good cyber hygiene” standards, the report must indicate whether they will bring their hygiene up to snuff by March of 2022 and how they will shore up vulnerabilities and risks in the meantime.

The DOD would need to start submitting monthly reports on all “cross domain incidents,” a new term that seems to include all intrusions into classified or restricted systems regardless of whether information is exfiltrated, contaminated, or exposed. The Pentagon would also need to provide Congress with a list of all currently operative exemptions to DOD information policy.

The DOD must draft and implement a plan on how to secure and protect the U.S. nuclear command and control system from cyber threats.

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) was extended. It was supposed to sunset after the delivery of its final report, but now it will continue to exist for the better part of two more years. The CSC would need to discharge the following duties:

• collecting and assessing comments and feedback from the Executive Branch, academia, and the public on the analysis and recommendations contained in the Commission’s report;
• collecting and assessing any developments in cybersecurity that may affect the analysis and recommendations contained in the Commission’s report;
• reviewing the implementation of the recommendations contained in the Commission’s report;
• revising, amending, or making new recommendations based on the [aforementioned] assessments and reviews…

The CSC’s primary recommendation that the U.S. have a National Cyber Director in the White House was included in the final bill. This new position shall also have a dedicated office in the Executive Office of the President but would not be a Senate confirmed position as the CSC advised. Moreover, it appears that offensive and defensive cyber operations of the DOD would be outside his or her statutory remit unless the President decides to make it so. The National Cyber Director would offer advice to the National Security Council (NSC) on U.S. cyber strategy and policy and coordinate the formulation of such policies and strategies. Moreover, the director would be a statutory member of the NSC. The National Cyber Director would lead U.S. responses at the federal level to cyber attacks and significant cyber campaigns.

The bill would expand the authority of the United States’ (U.S.) Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) with respect to operating on civilian agency networks. CISA would be able to access and inspect other agencies’ information systems without the permission or knowledge of the other agency and could then share information and its findings with the agency. And yet, CISA would not receive authority to act if it found something on another agency’s information networks or systems. Nonetheless, CISA would also be empowered to provide a range of assistance to other agencies.

DHS would need to conduct an assessment of CISA per the CSC’s recommendations on how the agency could improve its operations and better use its resources, among other matters. DHS would also be tasked with evaluating how well the Sector Specific Agency approach to regulating critical infrastructure is working as laid out in Presidential Policy Directive 21 and successor documents and make recommendations on how to revise the framework if needed. This could result in the Biden Administration revamping the current 17 sectors and other components of how the U.S. oversees its critical infrastructure. In concert with this review and possible revision, Sector Specific Agencies would be replaced by Sector Risk Management Agencies that, as a practical matter, will probably be the same agencies overseeing the same sectors but with greater statutory responsibilities.

DHS must study and draft a strategy for all U.S.-based email providers to use Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC), “an email authentication, policy, and reporting protocol that verifies the authenticity of the sender of an email and blocks and reports to the sender fraudulent accounts.”

DHS would need to report annually on digital content forgery technology with the Director of National Intelligence, including:

• An assessment of the underlying technologies used to create or propagate digital content forgeries, including the evolution of such technologies and patterns of dissemination of such technologies.
• A description of the types of digital content forgeries, including those used to commit fraud, cause harm, harass, coerce, or silence vulnerable groups or individuals, or violate civil rights recognized under Federal law.
• An assessment of how foreign governments, and the proxies and networks thereof, use, or could use, digital content forgeries to harm national security.
• An assessment of how non-governmental entities in the United States use, or could use, digital content forgeries.
• An assessment of the uses, applications, dangers, and benefits, including the impact on individuals, of deep learning or digital content forgery technologies used to generate realistic depictions of events that did not occur.
• An analysis of the methods used to determine whether content is created by digital content forgery technology, and an assessment of any effective heuristics used to make such a determination, as well as recommendations on how to identify and address suspect content and elements to provide warnings to users of such content.
• A description of the technological countermeasures that are, or could be, used to address concerns with digital content forgery technology.
• Any additional information the Secretary determines appropriate.

CISA would receive the subpoena authority it requested to obtain the contact information of owners and operators of critical cyber infrastructure from internet service providers (ISP) should there be a risk. CISA submitted a legislative proposal in summer 2019 that was then taken up by Senate and House stakeholders who then introduced legislation in December and February respectively: the “Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2019” (S. 3045) and the “Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2020” (H.R. 5680). The bills were very similar but had some differences that have been ironed out.

CISA would be able to appoint an employee in each state to serve as Cybersecurity State Coordinator to help states improve their cybersecurity.

CISA must establish a “Cybersecurity Advisory Committee” to “advise, consult with, report to, and make recommendations to the Director, as appropriate, on the development, refinement, and implementation of policies, programs, planning, and training pertaining to the cybersecurity mission of the Agency.”

Inside CISA, there would be a newly created Joint Cyber Planning Office “to develop, for public and private sector entities, plans for cyber defense operations, including the development of a set of coordinated actions to protect, detect, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity risks or incidents or limit, mitigate, or defend against coordinated, malicious cyber operations that pose a potential risk to critical infrastructure or national interests.”

Within one year, CISA “a report on Federal cybersecurity centers and the potential for better coordination of Federal cybersecurity efforts at an integrated cybersecurity center within” CISA.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) would need to investigate and report on cyber insurance in the U.S. At one time, some experts considered the development of a cyber insurance market as being crucial to driving greater cybersecurity across the private sector. However, this has not come to pass, which is likely why the GAO will be reporting on the issue.

On other technology policy, a Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund would be established and overseen by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to support the following activities:

• Promoting and deploying technology, including software, hardware, and microprocessing technology, that will enhance competitiveness in the fifth-generation (commonly known as ‘‘5G’’) and successor wireless technology supply chains that use open and interoperable interface radio access networks.
• Accelerating commercial deployments of open interface standards-based compatible, interoperable equipment, such as equipment developed pursuant to the standards set forth by organizations such as the O-RAN Alliance, the Telecom Infra Project, 3GPP, the Open-RAN Software Community, or any successor organizations.
• Promoting and deploying compatibility of new 5G equipment with future open standards-based, interoperable equipment.
• Managing integration of multi-vendor network environments.
• Identifying objective criteria to define equipment as compliant with open standards for multi-vendor network equipment interoperability.
• Promoting and deploying security features enhancing the integrity and availability of equipment in multi-vendor networks.
• Promoting and deploying network function virtualization to facilitate multi-vendor interoperability and a more diverse vendor market.

A Multilateral Telecommunications Security Fund would be created and run by the Department of State “to establish a common funding mechanism, in coordination with foreign partners, that uses amounts from the Multilateral Telecommunications Security Fund to support the development and adoption of secure and trusted telecommunications technologies.” The bill provides that “[i]n creating and sustaining a common funding mechanism, the Secretary of State should leverage United States funding in order to secure commitments and contributions from trusted foreign partners such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, and should prioritize the following objectives:

• Advancing research and development of secure and trusted communications technologies.
• Strengthening supply chains.
• Promoting the use of trusted vendors.”

Both of these new programs would need the Appropriations Committees to provide funding as the FY 2021 NDAA does not give them any money.

H.R.6395 directs “an interagency information technology spectrum modernization effort, led by the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Infrastructure and the NTIA, to synchronize development and coordination of standards and Federal spectrum management.” This provision “would also require the Secretary of Defense to establish a program to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in the telecommunications infrastructure of the DOD.”

The FY 2021 NDAA contains the “Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things Act” (DIGIT Act) (S.1611) that would require the Department of Commerce to “convene a working group of Federal stakeholders for the purpose of providing recommendations and a report to Congress relating to the aspects of the Internet of Things.”

H.R.6395 has provisions “that would require the Secretary of Commerce to establish a program that provides grants to covered entities to incentivize investment of semiconductor fabrication facilities, or assembly, testing, advanced packaging, or advanced research and development of semiconductors in the U.S.”

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