Photo of Susan B. Cassidy

Susan B. Cassidy

Susan is co-chair of the firm’s Aerospace and Defense Industry Group and is a partner in the firm’s Government Contracts and Cybersecurity Practice Groups. She previously served as in-house counsel for two major defense contractors and advises a broad range of government contractors on compliance with FAR and DFARS requirements, with a special expertise in supply chain, cybersecurity and FedRAMP requirements. She has an active investigations practice and advises contractors when faced with cyber incidents involving government information, as well as representing contractors facing allegations of cyber fraud under the False Claims Act. Susan relies on her expertise and experience with the Defense Department and the Intelligence Community to help her clients navigate the complex regulatory intersection of cybersecurity, national security, and government contracts. She is Chambers rated in both Government Contracts and Government Contracts Cybersecurity. In 2023, Chambers USA quoted sources stating that “Susan's in-house experience coupled with her deep understanding of the regulatory requirements is the perfect balance to navigate legal and commercial matters.”

Her clients range from new entrants into the federal procurement market to well established defense contractors and she provides compliance advices across a broad spectrum of procurement issues. Susan consistently remains at the forefront of legislative and regulatory changes in the procurement area, and in 2018, the National Law Review selected her as a “Go-to Thought Leader” on the topic of Cybersecurity for Government Contractors.

In her work with global, national, and start-up contractors, Susan advises companies on all aspects of government supply chain issues including:

Government cybersecurity requirements, including the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), DFARS 7012, and NIST SP 800-171 requirements,
Evolving sourcing issues such as Section 889, counterfeit part requirements, Section 5949 and limitations on sourcing from China
Federal Acquisition Security Council (FASC) regulations and product exclusions,
Controlled unclassified information (CUI) obligations, and
M&A government cybersecurity due diligence.

Susan has an active internal investigations practice that assists clients when allegations of non-compliance arise with procurement requirements, such as in the following areas:

Procurement fraud and FAR mandatory disclosure requirements,
Cyber incidents and data spills involving sensitive government information,
Allegations of violations of national security requirements, and
Compliance with MIL-SPEC requirements, the Qualified Products List, and other sourcing obligations.

In addition to her counseling and investigatory practice, Susan has considerable litigation experience and has represented clients in bid protests, prime-subcontractor disputes, Administrative Procedure Act cases, and product liability litigation before federal courts, state courts, and administrative agencies.

Susan is a former Public Contract Law Procurement Division Co-Chair, former Co-Chair and current Vice-Chair of the ABA PCL Cybersecurity, Privacy and Emerging Technology Committee.

Prior to joining Covington, Susan served as in-house senior counsel at Northrop Grumman Corporation and Motorola Incorporated.

Contact:Read more about Susan B. CassidyEmail

On March 27, 2024, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (“CISA”) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“Proposed Rule”) related to the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (“CIRCIA”) was released on the Federal Register website.  The Proposed Rule, which will be formally published in the Federal Register on April 4, 2024, proposes draft regulations to implement the incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure entities from CIRCIA, which President Biden signed into law in March 2022.  CIRCIA established two cyber incident reporting requirements for covered critical infrastructure entities: a 24-hour requirement to report ransomware payments and a 72-hour requirement to report covered cyber incidents to CISA.  While the overarching requirements and structure of the reporting process were established under the law, CIRCIA also directed CISA to issue the Proposed Rule within 24 months of the law’s enactment to provide further detail on the scope and implementation of these requirements.  Under CIRCIA, the final rule must be published by September 2025.

The Proposed Rule addresses various elements of CIRCIA, which will be covered in a forthcoming Client Alert.  This blog post focuses primarily on the proposed definitions of two pivotal terms that were left to further rulemaking under CIRCIA (Covered Entity and Covered Cyber Incident), which illustrate the broad scope of CIRCIA’s reporting requirements, as well as certain proposed exceptions to the reporting requirements.  The Proposed Rule will be subject to a review and comment period for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. Continue Reading CISA Issues Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Incident Reporting

On July 13, 2023 the White House issued the National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan (“NCSIP”).  The NCSIP identifies 65 initiatives – to be led by 18 different departments and agencies – that are designed as a roadmap for implementing the U.S. National Cybersecurity Strategy released earlier this year.  This is the first iteration of the plan, which is intended to be an evolving document that the Administration plans to update annually.  Consistent with the Strategy, the NCSIP contemplates five broad lines of effort (“pillars”):

  • Defending critical infrastructure;
  • Disrupting and dismantling threat actors;
  • Shaping market forces to drive security and resilience;
  • Investing in a resilient future; and
  • Forging international partnerships to pursue shared goals.

Among the many initiatives, the Administration has outlined several specific efforts over the next three years that will be of interest to technology companies, federal contractors, and critical infrastructure owners and operators.Continue Reading White House Releases Implementation Plan for the National Cybersecurity Strategy

The United States National Cybersecurity Strategy, released on March 2, 2023, is poised to place significant responsibility for cybersecurity on technology companies, federal contractors, and critical infrastructure owners and operators.  The Strategy articulates a series of objectives and recommended executive and legislative actions that, if implemented, would increase the cybersecurity responsibilities and requirements of these types of entities.  The overall goal of the Strategy is to create a “defensible, resilient digital ecosystem” where the costs of an attack are more than the cost of defending those systems and where “neither incidents nor errors cascade into catastrophic, systemic consequences.”  The Strategy outlines two fundamental shifts to how the federal government will attempt to allocate roles, responsibilities, and resources in cyberspace. Continue Reading White House Releases National Cybersecurity Strategy

On September 14, 2022, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) issued a memorandum to the heads of executive branch departments and agencies addressing the enhancement of security of the federal software supply chain.  The memorandum applies to all software (other than agency-developed software) developed or experiencing major version changes to be operated “on the agency’s information systems or otherwise affecting the agency’s information,” and requires new self-attestations from software vendors before that software can be used by agencies.  Continue Reading OMB Issues Memorandum on Self-Attestations by Software Developers of Secure Software Development Practices and Collection of Software Bill of Materials

This is the sixth in the series of Covington blogs on implementation of Executive Order 14028, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” issued by President Biden on May 12, 2021 (the “Cyber EO”).  The first blog summarized the Cyber EO’s key provisions and timelines, and the second, third, fourth, and fifth blogs described the actions taken by various federal agencies to implement the EO during June, July, August, and September 2021, respectively.  This blog summarizes key actions taken to implement the Cyber EO during October 2021.

Although the recent developments this month are directly applicable to the U.S. Government, the standards being established for U.S. Government agencies could be adopted as industry standards for all organizations that develop or acquire software similar to various industries adopting the NIST Cybersecurity Framework as a security controls baseline.
Continue Reading October 2021 Developments Under President Biden’s Cybersecurity Executive Order

On May 12, the Biden Administration issued an “Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.”  The Order seeks to strengthen the federal government’s ability to respond to and prevent cybersecurity threats, including by modernizing federal networks, enhancing the federal government’s software supply chain security, implementing enhanced cybersecurity practices and procedures in the federal government, and creating government-wide plans for incident response.  The Order covers a wide array of issues and processes, setting numerous deadlines for recommendations and actions by federal agencies, and focusing on enhancing the protection of federal networks in partnership with the service providers on which federal agencies rely.  Private sector entities, including federal contractors and service providers, will have opportunities to provide input to some of these actions.
Continue Reading President Biden Signs Executive Order Aimed at Improving Government Cybersecurity

Today, Susan Cassidy, Ashden Fein, Moriah Daugherty, and Melinda Lewis posted an article on Inside Government Contracts about the June 19, 2019 announcement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) of the long-awaited update to Special Publication (“SP”) 800-171 Rev. 1, Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Systems …
Continue Reading NIST Announces and Seeks Public Comment on 800-171 Update and Related Documents

On March 26, 2019, the Senate Armed Services’ Subcommittee on Cybersecurity held a hearing to receive testimony assessing how the Department of Defense’s (“DOD”) cybersecurity policies and regulations have affected the Defense Industrial Base (“DIB”).

To gain a better understanding of the DIB’s cybersecurity concerns, the Subcommittee invited William LaPlante,…
Continue Reading Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity Holds Hearing to Discuss the Responsibilities of the Defense Industrial Base

[The referenced article was originally published in Law360.]

Since August 2015, defense contractors have been on notice that they were required to implement the security controls in National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) Special Publication (“SP”) 800-171 no later than December 31, 2017 on covered contractor information systems. …
Continue Reading DFARS Cyber Rule – What Questions Should Contractors Ask Themselves in the New Year?

On December 20, 2017, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) held a live webcast to discuss the draft updates to the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (“the Cybersecurity Framework”) and the Roadmap for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (“the Roadmap”). Although the webcast is not currently available online, NIST plans to publish a recording of the live webcast in early January 2018.

During this webcast, NIST provided an overview of the updates to Version 1.1 of the Cybersecurity Framework (“Version 1.1”), which were analyzed in previous blog posts on Inside Privacy and Inside Government Contracts. The webcast included a discussion of the following topics:
Continue Reading NIST Holds Webcast to Discuss Updates to Cybersecurity Framework