Aerospace Association Trying To Soften Cybersecurity Standards

A trade association that lobbies Congress on behalf of defense contractors has released a list of voluntary standards designed to help aerospace companies keep weapons systems secure from hackers. According to a prominent cybersecurity consultant, the framework the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) developed is likely in reaction to requirements that were recently put in place by the Defense Department. He calls it “pushback,” an effort to soften those requirements. The military is actively considering how to incorporate cybersecurity assessments and requirements into defense contracts, which poses costly new compliance problems for manufacturers. The lobbying group is trying to prove it can regulate itself, and claims the voluntary standards give defense companies an accepted baseline by which the industry’s largest manufacturers can evaluate themselves and their suppliers. It provides a voluntary checklist based on 20 different metrics, including data protection, malware defenses and training, that would place companies into different “capability levels” based on the security of their products. Companies would make their own determination that they have met the standard.