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Senate Votes to Move on Cyber Legislation in Last-Ditch Effort
Just one week after President Obama published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal advising Congress to pass cybersecurity legislation to avoid “growing danger,” the Senate on Thursday voted to move forward with a bill attempting to address the issues at hand.
In an 84-11 vote, senators motioned to advance a revised version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, a bill that has seen its share of heated debates on the Hill and within the industry this year.
Co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Cali.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), the amended legislation aims to offer incentives to the private sector for voluntarily meeting cybersecurity standards set by the government. Previous versions of the bill would have mandated such standards. Read more…
Report: Information Sharing Not Meeting Nation’s Needs
Improved cyber information sharing between the public and private sectors is integral in enhancing national security, according to a report released Thursday by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Cyber Security Task Force.
As part of the Washington-based research organization’s Homeland Security Project, the task force advised that the current level of collaboration is not effectively protecting the nation and its critical infrastructure from potential cyber attacks.
Over a five-month span, from October 2011 to February 2012, more than 50,000 cyber attacks on both government and private sector networks were reported to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), representing only a small portion of the attempted attacks on the US each year, the 19-page report noted. Read more…
Intelligence Insiders Advise Senate to Move on Cyber Legislation
With the Senate back in session and time running out to pass legislation, intelligence officials weighed in again this week, urging members of Congress to take action.
Speaking at an event held Monday by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), director of the National Security Agency and head of the US Cyber Command Gen. Keith Alexander advised that cybersecurity legislation is essential in protecting the nation from emerging threats, including attacks that could come from the advancing cyber capabilities of terrorist group al-Qaida. Read more…
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