Melissa Hathaway Names 9 Cyber Bills to Watch

With cybersecurity becoming an increasingly visible issue, Congress has added its voice to the growing discussion with a number of bills currently pending. Melissa Hathaway, president of Hathaway Global Strategies and former cybersecurity official, recently authored a study of the pending legislation that is a must read for individuals in…

Why Successful Partnerships are Critical for Promoting Cybersecurity

Protecting the digital infrastructure is a shared responsibility of governments and private sector participants.  Although some may argue that government must take charge, achieving success here will require action from all, including partnerships between governments, within the private sector, and between government and the private sector.  While some refer to private-public…

House Committee Approves Restructuring of NIST

A bill approved by a House Committee Wednesday could result in the first restructuring of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in around twenty years. The House Science and Technology Committee has approved the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, which looks to promote the current director of NIST, Patrick Gallagher, to the position of undersecretary for standards and…

EPIC Submits Statement to Congress on Google-NSA Relationship

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has issued a statement to the House Foreign Affairs Committee regarding the recent revelations surrounding the Google-NSA relationship.

The statement asked the committee to conduct an investigation into the relationship between Google and NSA, urged the committee to support the ratification of the Council of Europe privacy convention and requested the classified document granting NSA…

Learn to Hack on the Government’s Dime

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 4061, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, which is the first major cybersecurity legislation to pass the House within the past year. The bill provides increased guidance for the role of NIST and NSF, looks to promote education and awareness efforts, coordinate R&D in the cyber realm and seeks to build…

House Passes Cybersecurity Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the first cybersecurity bill, 422 to 5.

The bill, HR 4061, known as the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, will now be sent to the Senate for approval.

Rep. Dan Lipinski (D, IL), the sponsor of the bill, said:

“The amount of time all of us spend on the Internet, the vulnerabilities that are out there,…

Congressional Websites Defaced

Several Congressional websites were defaced on Wednesday following President Obama’s State of the Union address. Congressmen Brian Baird, Spencer Bachus and Charles Gonzalez each had their websites hacked by the ‘Red Eye Crew’ from Brazil.

The hacked web pages were defaced with abusive language directed at President Obama. The defaced websites were all hosted in the house.gov domain. Several Committee sites were also hit in the attack.

The list of the…

House Passes Data Breach Notification Bill

The House has passed a bill that would introduce national rules surrounding the need to notify potential victims of identity theft following data breaches.

According to the bill, companies that possess personal data will be required to notify any U.S. citizens and residents along with the FTC if a data breach occurs that may have compromised personal data.

Notification would be required within sixty days of discovering the issue….

Is Congress to Blame for Poor US Cybersecurity?

According to a former assistant secretary for cybersecurity at DHS, Congress shares some of the blame for the current state of cyber security in the United States. Gregory Garcia, assistant secretary for cyber security at DHS from 2006 to 2008, believes that the intensive and often overlapping oversight significantly hindered DHS’s ability to implement effective cyber security policies and solutions.

Garcia cited a few examples, particularly that at…

Bill Introduced to Ban P2P Applications on Federal Systems

R. Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, has introduced the Secure Federal File Sharing Act, which will ban peer-to-peer applications on federal systems. The move follows the recent leak of a document on an ethics investigation into members of Congress via a P2P application.

The bill will require the Office of Management and Budget to prohibit the use of any P2P applications on…