On Thursday, the House passed an annual defense policy bill… and it has cyber built right in. Language to designate “systemically important entities” to the most vital U.S. critical infrastructure was included, a policy move initially recommended by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. The underlying bill also will establish a “Cyber Threat Environment Collaboration Program,” a portal intended to increase data sharing among members of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s new Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative.
And despite the news last week that the Solarwinds investigation was done, a provision would require CISA to investigate the sweeping SolarWinds hack and report to Congress with policy suggestions. Still to come is the Senate version and the later compromise deal.
The FCC has proposed increasing the agency’s broadband speed standard from 25 to 100 megs down and from 3 to 20 up. That was announced last week as well. Treasury Department announced that it would provide millions of dollars to build out high-speed broadband projects in four states as part of the American Rescue Plan’s Coronavirus Capital Projects Fun, so Kansas, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota will be expanding broadband to over eighty-three thousand homes.
And in the post-Roe-legal realm, the FTC has indicated it will step up to protect consumers’ privacy, declaring the agency is “committed to fully enforcing the law” against the illegal sharing of sensitive medical and location data. The commission aimed particularly at data brokers and third parties who share previously collected information. The post points to a wide range of sources that can potentially collect sensitive information about a user but highlights the combination of location data and health data as presenting a particular risk to consumers.
Think this isn’t impactful – well, fertility app provider Proov specifically moved from AWS and Azure to Google Cloud.. and the reason was the most options for data storage in stages that protect abortion rights.
It’s that last story that I want to tie things together. Someone advised Proov about that move – and due to the landscape of regulation around them. All of these moves are details to consider in your practice of managing your customer’s needs. Sure, different regulations for different customers, and thus why we have a whole space of compliance. I’m not sure I like that framing as much as I prefer considering it as lawyers do. Practice areas.
There are scalability issues to consider here for sure in SMB. Those that figure that out will do well… they have to because it’s not cheap.