Cybersecurity Policy Report, Administration Taps NSA to Assess Government’s Communications Security, (Jun 15, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:National Security Council
The National Security Agency will assess the security of the government’s communications technologies under a national security presidential memorandum (NSPM) issued Friday by the White House.
Titled “National Policy for the Cybersecurity of National Security Systems,” NSPM-12 designates the NSA as the “national manager” for national security systems (NSS), which are defined in a fact sheet as “the US’s most sensitive computer systems—those that process classified information or support military and intelligence missions.”
The NSPM reestablishes a Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) and directs the committee to “establish baseline cybersecurity requirements for all NSS and enhance accountability and coordination across agencies to implement necessary cyber defenses across all NSS.”
The NSPM gives the NSA 90 days to “provide recommendations to the CNSS on policy to promote government-wide, secure, interoperable unclassified voice and video communication capabilities for mobile and fixed devices” used by federal civilian executive branch agencies, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community.
“Secure unclassified communication among agencies is essential in promoting the security of NSS and the missions that these systems support,” it says.
The CNSS, which will be led by the White House National Security Council, DoD, NSA, the director of national intelligence, and the Office of Management and Budget, also will be responsible for establishing “baseline cybersecurity requirements for all NSS ... that meet or exceed the protection level of cybersecurity standards issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),” the NSPM says.
The CNSS will be empowered to issue emergency directives to agencies “in response to a known or reasonably suspected information security threat, vulnerability, or risk that represents a substantial threat to the information security of NSS, or in response to intelligence of adversary capability and intent to target NSS,” the memorandum says.
Other duties of the CNSS include, among other things, the assessment of the cyber defenses of NSS systems, the establishment of annual policy priorities for NSS cybersecurity, and the development of “incident reporting standards that enable government-wide awareness of incidents impacting NSS.”
News: FederalLegislation DataSecurity