PILL A R I: PROTECT THE A M ERIC A N PEOPLE, THE HOM EL A ND, A ND THE A MERIC A N WAY OF LIFE finance, health and safety, communications, information technology, and transportation. protect the election infrastructure. The Federal Government will continue to coordinate the development of cybersecurity standards and guidance to safeguard the electoral process and the tools that deliver a secure system. In the event of a significant cyber incident, the Federal Government is poised to provide threat and asset response to recover election infrastructure. LEVERAGE INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS AS CYBERSECURITY ENABLERS: Information and communications technology (ICT) underlies every sector in America. ICT providers are in a unique position to detect, prevent, and mitigate risk before it impacts their customers, and the Federal Government must work with these providers to improve ICT security and resilience in a targeted and efficient manner while protecting privacy and civil liberties. The United States Government will strengthen efforts to share information with ICT providers to enable them to respond to and remediate known malicious cyber activity at the network level. This will include sharing classified threat and vulnerability information with cleared ICT operators and downgrading information to the unclassified level as much as possible. We will promote an adaptable, sustainable, and secure technology supply chain that supports security based on best practices and standards. The United States Government will convene stakeholders to devise cross-sector solutions to challenges at the network, device, and gateway layers, and we will encourage industry-driven certification regimes that ensure solutions can adapt in a rapidly evolving market and threat landscape. INCENTIVIZE CYBERSECURITY INVESTMENTS: Most cybersecurity risks to critical infrastructure stem from the exploitation of known vulnerabilities. The United States Government will work with private and public sector entities to promote understanding of cybersecurity risk so they make more informed risk-management decisions, invest in appropriate security measures, and re alize be ne fits from those inve stme nts. PRIORITIZE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INVESTMENTS: The Federal Government will update the National Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Research and Development Plan to set priorities for addressing cybersecurity risks to critical infrastructure. Departments and agencies will align their investments to the priorities, which will focus on building new cybersecurity approaches that use emerging technologies, improving information-sharing and risk management related to cross-sector interdependencies, and building resilience to large-scale or long-duration disruptions. Securing our democratic processes is of paramount importance to the United States and our democratic allies. State and local government officials own and operate diverse election infrastructure within the United States. Therefore, when requested we will provide technical and risk management services, support training and exercising, maintain situational awareness of threats to this sector, and improve the sharing of threat intelligence with those officials to better prepare and PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY: IMPROVE TRANSPORTATION AND MARITIME CYBERSECURITY: America’s economic and national security is built on global trade and transportation. Our ability to guarantee free and timely movement of goods, open sea and air lines of communications, access to oil and natural gas, and availability of associated critical infrastructures is vital to our economic and national security. As these sectors have modernized, 9