From: JDSupra Business Advisor

Reporter, Daniel Ray, Silicon Valley, King & Spalding

On June 7, 2016, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations (the “Committee”) reported out a funding bill that would fund the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) to work with the retail industry to promote cybersecurity measures specific to the retail industry, as well as to continue its work managing and standardizing security practices for the “Internet of Things.”

The Committee’s report, H. Rep. 114-605, calls on NIST to “to build on its existing industry-sector focused work to create a retail-specific cybersecurity initiative and partner, as appropriate, with academic entities and national leaders in retail cybersecurity and retail supply chain management and logistics.” Retailers’ cybersecurity profiles have been a subject of the Committee’s concern in reviewing past appropriations as well. For fiscal year 2016, the Committee addressed NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence specifically, encouraging it to develop “use cases and tools [for the retail sector] in partnership with retailers and universities.” NIST ’s budget request for fiscal year 2017 did not specifically outline new programs targeted at retailers or their suppliers, but its initiatives will likely include continuing work on multifactor authentication for e-commerce and non-PCI sensitive data.

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