President Donald Trump has signed a new National Security Presidential Memorandum aimed at strengthening the cybersecurity of the federal government’s most sensitive military and intelligence networks.
The June 12 memo, issued at a time of growing concern about cyber threats from China and other adversaries, re-constitutes the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) to oversee the cybersecurity of National Security Systems (NSS) across federal agencies.
It puts the director of the National Security Agency (NSA) in a strengthened role as National Manager for National Security Systems, empowering the director “to leverage the full technical power of the National Security Agency to provide advanced defenses and assistance in order to bolster the security of NSS across the U.S. government,” according to a White House fact sheet.
The memo establishes National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity standards as a baseline for NSS, saying the systems must meet or exceed NIST protection levels.
It also requires each national security agency to “maintain and annually update” an inventory of its national security systems, while adding that the CNSS will request secure configuration baselines from cloud service providers accredited to host NSS within120 days.
“It is my priority to ensure that the United States can conduct key military and intelligence missions in contested cyber environments and that our personnel have access to the modern, secure technology they need to accomplish these missions,” Trump said in the memo. “It shall be the policy of the United States Government that these systems be defended to the greatest extent practicable.”
Bob Ackerman, co-founder and managing partner at DataTribe and founder and chairman of the Global Cyber Innovation Summit (GCIS), offered praise for the memo.
“This action is a pragmatic acknowledgement of the cyber threats targeting our country and calls for a long overdue, holistic cyber defense strategy to harden the National Security Systems upon which our warfighters and intelligence officers rely,” he told MeriTalk.
“As the Chinese and other hostile governments use AI to speed up and scale cyber campaigns against U.S. defense and intelligence infrastructure, the stakes are no longer theoretical,” Ackerman said. “America has to double down on dynamic, AI?driven approaches to cyber resilience, OT security, and secure software development that can stay ahead of fast?moving, well?resourced adversaries.”
In its reconstituted role, CNSS will oversee the cybersecurity of NSS government-wide and “establish baseline cybersecurity requirements for all NSS and enhance accountability and coordination across agencies to implement necessary cyber defenses.”
The memo rescinds several previous national security directives, including former President Joe Biden’s 2022 memo on improving cybersecurity. It also laid out numerous roles for CNSS in helping to oversee cybersecurity policies.