Loading story…
CISA is expected to finalize its long-delayed Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) rule by September, establishing a mandatory federal reporting regime for critical infrastructure operators. Under the rule, covered entities would have to report substantial cyber incidents to CISA within 72 hours and disclose ransomware payments within 24 hours, marking a major shift from the agency’s largely voluntary incident-sharing model.
The reporting mandate was authorized in 2022 but missed its statutory October 2025 deadline amid rulemaking delays and Department of Homeland Security scheduling disruptions. CISA has continued procedural work and stakeholder outreach, including notices and town halls, as officials refine the final directive shaped by lessons from the SolarWinds compromise, the Colonial Pipeline attack, and broader concerns that geopolitical crises could trigger cyberattacks against U.S. infrastructure.
Mallory correlates global threat intelligence with your attack surface — know if you’re exposed before adversaries strike.
6 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
A regulation document published last week indicated that CISA expects to finalize the critical infrastructure cyber incident reporting rule in September.
After the scheduling delays, CISA conducted additional stakeholder town halls as part of continued engagement to refine the final reporting rule.
A Department of Homeland Security shutdown delayed scheduling for the rulemaking process, contributing to broader delays in finalizing the reporting rule.
In April 2024, CISA issued its first procedural notice for the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act rulemaking process.
The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act was enacted in 2022, establishing the basis for mandatory reporting of substantial cyber incidents and ransomware payments by critical infrastructure entities.
CISA did not meet the statutory October 2025 deadline for finalizing the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act rule.
Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.
2 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
Map indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
US cyber leadership signaled near-term movement on **national cybersecurity strategy** and **critical-infrastructure cyber regulation**, emphasizing closer industry-government coordination. National Cyber Director **Sean Cairncross** said the forthcoming national cyber strategy aims to streamline overlapping regulations away from checklist compliance, while strengthening information-sharing mechanisms, federal modernization, critical infrastructure protection, workforce development, emerging technologies, and deterrence of foreign cyberattacks; he also highlighted work on an **AI security framework** and urged support for reauthorizing the **2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act**. CISA indicated an update is imminent on implementing the **2022 Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA)** after delays and industry backlash to an earlier approach. CISA executive assistant director **Nick Andersen** said news is expected “in the next couple of weeks” on how the rulemaking will proceed; the final rule deadline has slipped to **May 2026**. CIRCIA would require critical infrastructure entities to report **major cyber incidents within 72 hours** and **ransomware payments within 24 hours** to CISA, reflecting federal efforts to standardize incident reporting and improve national visibility into significant attacks.
Jun 29, 2026
The **Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)** announced it will hold sector-by-sector virtual town halls to gather additional industry feedback on its long-delayed rulemaking under the **Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA)**. The proposed regulation would require covered critical infrastructure entities to report **significant cyber incidents within 72 hours** and **ransomware payments within 24 hours**, but key details—such as which entities are covered, how to treat small businesses, what incident examples trigger reporting, and how to avoid conflicts with existing regulatory regimes—remain contentious and are a focus of the sessions. Separately, CISA leadership briefed staff on an impending **Cybersecurity Division reorganization** driven by resource constraints, including plans to **deprioritize or shut down some programs** to concentrate on higher-profile goals such as **operational technology (OT) security** and core national cyber defense functions. The internal messaging emphasized doing more with fewer personnel following a period of layoffs, retirements, and other disruptions, while refocusing the division on delivering actionable cyber intelligence to partners and coordinating broader “national cybersecurity defense” planning and operations.
Jun 29, 2026
CISA issued **Binding Operational Directive `26-04`** requiring U.S. federal civilian agencies to prioritize vulnerability remediation by risk instead of treating all flaws as equally urgent. The directive tells agencies to rank vulnerabilities using four factors: whether the affected asset is public-facing, whether exploitation can be fully automated, whether compromise could enable full system takeover, and whether there is evidence of active exploitation, including inclusion in CISA’s **Known Exploited Vulnerabilities** catalog. Based on those criteria, agencies now face remediation deadlines ranging from **three days** for the highest-risk cases to **60 days** for lower-priority flaws, while some low-risk issues may be deferred until a planned major system upgrade. CISA said the overhaul is meant to help agencies “patch smarter, not harder” as AI shortens the time between disclosure and weaponization and defenders struggle with limited resources. Agencies must immediately update vulnerability management policies, revise remediation processes within 60 days, and fully implement the directive’s timelines within 180 days; vulnerabilities meeting all four criteria also require forensic triage to determine whether systems were already compromised before patching. CISA said an initial review at one large civilian agency found only about **1%** of vulnerability instances would require the three-day response, while more than **60%** could be deferred, and the agency urged private-sector organizations to adopt similar risk-based practices alongside hardening, segmentation, and phishing-resistant MFA.
Jul 13, 2026