Food and Agriculture Industry Cybersecurity Support Act

Food and Agriculture Industry Cyberspace Support Act

This bill requires the establishment of a clearinghouse for food and agriculture cyberspace resources and the development of related best practices recommendations.

Specifically, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) must establish a publicly available clearinghouse that contains current food and agriculture industry-focused cybersecurity resources.

Further, the NTIA must develop voluntary cybersecurity recommendations relating to the development, maintenance, and operation of the food and agriculture industry. The recommendations must be based on a consolidation of public and private sector best practices and be included in the NTIA clearinghouse. The recommendations must also include, to the greatest extent practicable, materials that address (1) risk-based, cybersecurity-informed engineering; (2) planning for retention or recovery of positive control of systems in the event of a cybersecurity incident; (3) protection against unauthorized access to critical functions of the industry; and (4) plans for how industry businesses should respond to ransomware attacks.

The Government Accountability Office must coordinate with specified federal agencies to conduct a study on actions the federal government has taken or may take to improve cybersecurity in the food and agriculture industry.