he Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Monday released safety and security guidelines for critical infrastructure, a move that comes just days after the Department of Homeland Security announced the formation of a safety and security board focused on the same topic. The guidelines for critical infrastructure owners and operators also fulfills CISA’s obligations under the Biden administration’s October executive order on artificial intelligence. The guidelines are meant to address both the opportunities made possible by artificial intelligence for critical infrastructure — which spans 16 sectors, including farming and information technology — and the ways it could be weaponized or misused. CISA instructs operators and owners of critical infrastructure to govern, map, measure, and manage their use of the technology, incorporating the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI risk management framework. “Based on CISA’s expertise as National Coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience, DHS’ Guidelines are the agency’s first-of-its-kind cross-sector analysis of AI-specific risks to critical infrastructure sectors and will serve as a key tool to help owners and operators mitigate AI risk,” CISA Director Jen Easterly in a statement. The guidelines emphasize a range of steps, including understanding the dependencies of AI vendors that operators might be working with and inventorying AI use cases. They also encourage critical infrastructure owners to create procedures for reporting AI security risks and continually testing AI systems for vulnerabilities.
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