A coalition of trade groups from the financial, business, and critical infrastructure sectors—including ABA—yesterday urged Congress to improve intelligence sharing between the government and privately-owned infrastructure to address cybersecurity threats. The groups said the intelligence community and critical infrastructure including financial services, energy and communications sectors, need better collaboration to address threats from “nation-state actors and international criminal organizations seeking to disrupt or destroy systems on which the entire United States relies.”
The groups urged Congress to enact provisions 605 and 606 in the Intelligence Authorization Act passed by the House Intelligence Committee “to improve intelligence information sharing between the government and critical infrastructure.”
National intelligence capabilities need to be used to protect critical infrastructure designated as strategic assets, the groups added. “The Department of Homeland Security and sector-specific agencies play important roles and are critical partners with designated critical infrastructure; however, they cannot provide the foreign intelligence collection capabilities and analytic capacity of the intelligence community led by the director of national intelligence.”
