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Micaela McMurrough

Micaela McMurrough serves as co-chair of Covington's global and multi-disciplinary Technology Group, as co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) initiative. In her practice, she has represented clients in high-stakes antitrust, patent, trade secrets, contract, and securities litigation, and other complex commercial litigation matters, and she regularly represents and advises domestic and international clients on cybersecurity and data privacy issues, including cybersecurity investigations and cyber incident response. Micaela has advised clients on data breaches and other network intrusions, conducted cybersecurity investigations, and advised clients regarding evolving cybersecurity regulations and cybersecurity norms in the context of international law.

In 2016, Micaela was selected as one of thirteen Madison Policy Forum Military-Business Cybersecurity Fellows. She regularly engages with government, military, and business leaders in the cybersecurity industry in an effort to develop national strategies for complex cyber issues and policy challenges. Micaela previously served as a United States Presidential Leadership Scholar, principally responsible for launching a program to familiarize federal judges with various aspects of the U.S. national security structure and national intelligence community.

Prior to her legal career, Micaela served in the Military Intelligence Branch of the United States Army. She served as Intelligence Officer of a 1,200-member maneuver unit conducting combat operations in Afghanistan and was awarded the Bronze Star.

On June 10, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 26-04 on Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk and the accompanying Implementation Guidance. In releasing the BOD and Implementation Guidance, CISA noted that the documents are “part of CISA’s response to the current threat landscape” and the impact of AI on the volume of identified security vulnerabilities and compressed timelines for remediation as threat actors move quickly to exploit them. While the BOD and Implementation Guidance apply to agencies, CISA Acting Director Nick Anderson noted in the release of the documents that “CISA strongly encourages all partners to adopt similar actions in their vulnerability management policy.”

Continue Reading CISA Releases Binding Operational Directive on Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk

On June 2, 2026, the White House issued an executive order titled “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security” (the “Order”).  The Order reflects the Administration’s stated policy of advancing U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence (“AI”) while addressing national security risks associated with increasingly capable AI systems.  To accomplish these policy goals, the Order outlines two approaches: (1) strengthening U.S. Government and private industry cyber defenses in response to “advanced AI,” and (2) developing voluntary benchmarking and review frameworks for secure development and release of “frontier” AI models.

Continue Reading White House Releases Executive Order on Advanced AI Innovation and Security

On July 23, the White House released its AI Action Plan, outlining the key priorities of the Trump Administration’s AI policy agenda.  In parallel, President Trump signed three AI executive orders directing the Executive Branch to implement the AI Action Plan’s policies on “Preventing Woke AI in

Continue Reading Trump Administration Issues AI Action Plan and Series of AI Executive Orders

On June 6, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order (“Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Amending Executive Order 13694 and Executive Order 14144”) (the “Order”) that modifies certain initiatives in prior Executive Orders issued by Presidents Obama and Biden and highlights key cybersecurity priorities for

Continue Reading White House Issues New Cybersecurity Executive Order

On May 22, 2025, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”), which sits within the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) released guidance for AI system operators regarding managing data security risks.  The associated press release explains that the guidance provides “best practices for system operators to mitigate cyber risks through

Continue Reading CISA Releases AI Data Security Guidance

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 January 29, 2024, the Department of Commerce (“Department”) published a proposed rule (“Proposed Rule”) to require providers and foreign resellers of U.S. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (“IaaS”) products to (i) verify the identity of their foreign customers and (ii) notify the Department when a foreign person transacts with that provider or reseller to train a large artificial intelligence (“AI”) model with potential capabilities that could be used in malicious cyber-enabled activity. The proposed rule also contemplates that the Department may impose special measures to be undertaken by U.S. IaaS providers to deter foreign malicious cyber actors’ use of U.S. IaaS products.  The accompanying request for comments has a deadline of April 29, 2024.

The Proposed Rule would effectuate many of the requirements laid out in the Executive Order on Taking Additional Steps to Address the National Emergency with Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities (“E.O. 13984”).  E.O. 13984, issued three years prior to the Proposed Rule, set in motion requirements for IaaS providers to enact certain customer identity verification procedures and take special measures to prevent their services from being used by foreign actors for malicious cyber-enabled activities.  The AI provisions of the Proposed Rule stem from the more recent Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (“E.O. 14110″), issued on October 30, 2023, which directed the Department to propose regulations for U.S. IaaS providers to (i) submit reports to the Department when a customer transacts with the provider to train an AI model that could be used for malicious cyber-enabled activities and (ii) ensure foreign resellers of IaaS products also conduct identity verification of foreign account holders.

The proposed regulations are further explained and summarized below:

Continue Reading Department of Commerce Issues Proposed Rule to Regulate Infrastructure-as-a-Service Providers and Resellers

Last week, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released guidance on Security-by-Design and Security-by-Default principles for technology manufacturers that was jointly developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency, as well as cybersecurity authorities in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, and New Zealand.  The

Continue Reading CISA Publishes International Guidance on Implementing Security-by-Design and Security-by-Default Principles for Software Manufacturers and Customers

The United States National Cybersecurity Strategy, released on March 2, 2023, is poised to place significant responsibility for cybersecurity on federal contractors, technology companies, 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

Continue Reading White House Releases National Cybersecurity Strategy

On January 19, 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) published a Concept Paper setting out “Potential Significant Updates to the Cybersecurity Framework” and requesting public feedback and comments on the proposed revisions by March 3, 2023.  Originally released in 2014 and previously updated in 2018, the

Continue Reading NIST Requests Comments on Potential Significant Updates to the Cybersecurity Framework