Posted on House.gov Dec. 9, 2024

Recently, the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, led by Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), held a hearing with private sector witnesses to examine how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) “Secure-By-Design” initiative has influenced the cybersecurity posture of businesses that have adopted its principles.

Witness testimony was provided by Dr. Srinivas Mukkamala, board of regents for New Mexico Tech and board member for El Paso Electric, as well as Heather Adkins, vice president of security engineering at Google; Jim Richberg, head of cyber policy and global field chief information security officer at Fortinet; Shane Fry, chief technology officer at RunSafe Security.

Video of the entire hearing is here.

In closing remarks, Dr. Mukkamala emphasized the need to bolster the cybersecurity workforce, a shortage that is addressed by Chairman Mark E. Green’s (R-TN) ‘Cyber PIVOTT Act’:
 
“The ask for the new Congress is to continue to support [secure-by-design]. And we have to focus on the fundamentals. What that means is reskilling [and] upskilling our existing workforce. ‘Secure-By-Design’ talks about companies focusing on the technical aspects, but nowhere in this pledge [did] the people who have signed it say…‘We’re going to address a fundamental workforce problem.’ I think that absolutely needs to be brought back into first principle on upskilling and reskilling a workforce.”