The question has come across my desk a lot the last few days and it is, sadly, a lot scary than we realize. But the big question many are posing right now is, “What happens to cybersecurity and data protection during a government shutdown?”
The government contingency plan during a shutdown is anything short of scary and dangerous. During this shutdown, CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, will operate at approximately one-third staff (889 out of 2,540). CISA is the agency that leads all national efforts to protect our critical infrastructures. This infrastructure includes public safety, utilities, national security, communication, transportation, and economic stability. You know, not that much. ;-)
CISA is the hidden agency that keeps everything running and protected. Their core functions include:
Security Coordination nationally and across agencies
Information Sharing, specifically on threat intelligence and advisories
Protecting Critical Infrastructure for all major systems listed above
Incidence and Breach Response
Resilience and Assessment
This agency is now officially operating at 30% capacity. CISA sharing its extensive Procedures Relating to a Lapse in Appropriations earlier this week. During this shutdown, CISA will support and secure “core systems” - core systems are unique to each agency so there is no universal definition. Typically core functions include network monitoring, active intrusion response, and notification of other agencies of active threats.
Functions that halt, slow down or falter include anything deemed non-critical. These include preventative actions, new or emerging threat monitoring, general policies, audits, planning, notifications, overall oversight, and support.
During this time, we must expect:
Delayed responses and reduced capacity for all actions (even excepted actions)
Breakdown of information and threat sharing
Delayed updates/protection for mitigation and preventative actions
Uncertainty of overall and general national security
At this time, the federal government’s cybersecurity and data infrastructure is operating at approximately 55%. Every week a shutdown continues, we can expect 3-5% additional deterioration down to approximately 25%.
All agencies have included statements in their plans that their infrastructure will be strained and that malicious actors, including hackers syndicates and adversarial countries, will attempt to exploit. Will, not may. Re-read this paragraph.
Internal Revenue Service Plan
This obviously brings the question forward regarding the IRS’ plans during a government shutdown. Portions of the IRS do operate through funding connected to an IRA. However, their plans are not expressly detailed out in their lapse plan. IT and Cybersecurity are not directly delineated. However, the overall framework does imply only minimal staff and functionality will be maintained in the interim.
In final thoughts, what does this mean? We are currently operating on a very minimal, barebones staff nationally protecting our cybersecurity and overall critical infrastructures. During this time, it is important to review and manage your own safeguards and, potentially, implement new measures to monitor your and your client data.
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