§1500 National Cyber Director

Summary

Creates an Office of the National Cyber Director inside the Executive Office of the President. The President appoints the Director with the Senate’s approval. The Director serves at the President’s pleasure and is paid at Executive Schedule level II. The Director is the President’s main adviser on national cybersecurity policy and strategy. That includes coordinating information security, programs to strengthen cyber defenses, efforts to deter harmful cyber activity, supply chain and vendor security, international rules for state behavior in cyberspace, and how new technologies affect security. The Director advises the National Security Council, Homeland Security Council, and federal agencies; leads and checks how the federal government carries out cyber strategy (including reviewing budgets for consistency and cost-effectiveness); coordinates with the Attorney General, Federal CIO, OMB Director, DNI, and CISA Director to streamline policies; reports yearly to the President, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and Congress; and leads planning and integrated federal incident response to major cyberattacks, including working with private companies. The Director can delegate duties, represent the President in cyber advisory groups, and join international meetings when coordinating with the Secretary of State. The Office can hire staff (up to 75 people without some usual limits, paid up to Executive Schedule level IV), use experts paid up to GS‑15 rates, accept detailees up to three years, make needed rules, use other agencies’ services, enter contracts, accept voluntary help, adopt a seal, and sell copies of documents at cost. The Director cannot change other agencies’ authorities or interfere with criminal or national security investigations, military or diplomatic actions, intelligence operations, or the classification of intelligence, and cannot amend confidentiality rules that were in effect the day before January 1, 2021. Defined terms in the section include: cybersecurity posture (ability to find, protect, detect, respond, and recover from serious intrusions), cyber attack or campaign of significant consequence (incidents that severely disrupt federal or critical services, cause major loss of funds or data, or threaten national security or the economy), incident, incident response, information security, and intelligence (each as described in the listed federal law references).