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The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security examines legislation looking at new cyberthreats to the homefront.
In a meeting today, a United States Senate committee examined new measures to enhance federal reporting for cybersecurity vulnerabilities that threaten âcritical infrastructureâ. They convened in an attempt to establish new support for state and local governments confronting threats like ransomware.
A new era in homeland security?
The centerpiece of the March 11 hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security is bill S. 3045, the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2019. First introduced in December, the new bill looks to amend the landmark Homeland Security Act of 2002 to include new provisions aimed specifically at cybersecurity.
The âCybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Actâ specifically targets instances when the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identifies cyber vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure that they cannot report. The bill authorizes CISA to subpoena for this information when they discover vulnerabilities.
Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) said of the bill:
âThis is an incredibly important piece of legislation. I know thereâs some concern about it, I think because thereâs misinformation.â
Fighting ransomware from the federal level
Another subject of todayâs meeting was the Cybersecurity State Coordinator Act of 2020, which also looks to expand CISAâs purview. Sponsored by Sen. Margaret Hassan (D-NH), the bill looks to spread federal protections coping with cyber threats that states may lack the infrastructure to cope with themselves â specifically citing ransomware.
The Cybersecurity State Coordinator Act would require the director of CISA to appoint a separate coordinator of cyber defenses for each of the 50 states. This would facilitate âthe sharing of cyber threat information between Federal and non-Federal entities.â
Municipal governments have struggled to manage the threat of ransomware. The city government of Atlanta famously fell victim to ransomware back in 2018. More recently, the South African city of Johannesburg experienced a similar attack in October of 2019.
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