The Guard's quasi-federal status is key to the plan, which Christy wants to see spread to all fifty states. The cyber impacts the physical, and that's what's so unique about the bill. But the SIPC bill is not without critics, and an earlier version passed Arizona's House of Representatives only to be shot down in the Senate. It also calls for us to use existing resources, and we have no statewide information security specialists in our agency. Marsh counters that the state should already be using IDS systems, and other security measures, across the board, and argues that availability of freeware programs like Snort and PGP should alleviate cost concerns.
Information assurance is a critical component of that.