Securing North American Critical Infrastructure: A Comparative Case Study in Cybersecurity Regulation

Abstract

The United States and Canada are interdependent along a number of dimensions, including the two nations’ mutual reliance on shared critical infrastructure. As a result, regulatory efforts aimed at securing critical infrastructure in one nation impact the other, including in the cybersecurity context. This Article explores one such innovation in the form of the 2014 National Institute for Standards and Technology (“NIST”) Cybersecurity Framework. We briefly review the evolution of the NIST Framework, comparing and contrasting it with ongoing Canadian efforts to secure vulnerable critical infrastructure against cyber threats as a vehicle to discover North American governance trends that could impact wider debates about the appropriate role of the public and private sectors in enhancing cybersecurity.

Keywords: cybersecurity, north america, cyber attack, NIST Framework, Canada, United States