House Passes Cybersecurity Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives today passed the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act by a vote of 422 to 5.

The bill is aimed at improving cybersecurity within the federal government as well as the public and private sectors by helping to develop a skilled cybersecurity workforce along with coordinating and prioritizing federal research and development.

The bill also seeks to improve the transfer of cyber security technologies to the marketplace and promote cybersecurity education for the public.

Bart-Gordon "The Internet does not stop at our borders; the consequences of poor cybersecurity measures can greatly impact our national security and economy," said bill cosponsor and Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN).

"Improving cybersecurity will require a collaborative effort both domestically and internationally. H.R. 4061 accomplishes this by coordinating U.S. representation in the development of international cybersecurity technical standards and best practices and by creating a strategic vision for federal cybersecurity R&D."

The bill reauthorizes a number of National Science Foundation cyber security programs, providing $396 million in research grants over the next four years and offering $94 million in cyber security scholarships.

The bill would also require the Administration to conduct an assessment of cybersecurity workforce needs across federal agencies. In addition the bill requires the Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy Director to put together a university task force to find new models for putting in place collaborative R&D.

"H.R. 4061 is a good bipartisan bill that strengthens public-private partnerships, ensures an overall vision for the federal cybersecurity R&D portfolio, trains the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, and improves cybersecurity technical standards," added Gordon.

> Spam Is Getting More Malicious

>Stealth Phishing Attack Looks Like Internal Email

>Security A Concern For Online Holiday Shoppers

There are 13 Comments. Add Yours.

Ricky Majtyka
February 4, 2010 at 6:03 pm

Mike,

I’m an internet marketer and use splash pages and capture pages to build my list. Do you think this bill will have an effect on sites like this?

Thanks
Ricky
Stupidscript
February 4, 2010 at 6:47 pm

As long as you are not in the business of infiltrating other people’s computer networks.

“Cybersecurity” as used in the bill (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h4061/text) refers to the security of the Internet from hackers and other malcontents. It has no bearing on normal web operations, and is basically a call to assess what protective systems are available, what type of “cybersecurity workforce” (people working in online security) currently exists in the U.S.A., and asks for suggestions on how the U.S. Government can improve what it is doing to prepare for a future filled with ever-increasing numbers and levels of attacks.
Guest
February 5, 2010 at 4:55 am

They could start by pulling the windows OS from every government owned/controlled computer and replacing it with Linux.
Roe
February 5, 2010 at 1:16 pm

Americans more or less invented both the computer and the Internet (details can be argued, but we can agree that we at least funded it and made it world-wide more than anyone else).

So why, please tell me, why are we so behind on this issue?

It used to be common knowledge that when the feds busted big time hackers, they would often employ these hackers to work for the US government in exchange for reduced sentences or immunity. Did we just, like, stop doing this? Even without this method in place, there is no good reason or explanation other than complete idiocy on the parts of lawmakers and law enforcement agencies that we let other countries one-up us in the area of cyber-security and having “digital armies” of hackers.
Guest
February 5, 2010 at 3:28 pm

The US Gov. protecting CITIZENS on the WWW is right and correct. There are many URLs being used from outside and inside the US that are danger to our people and it is getting worse and more sophisticated. Let
Guest
February 6, 2010 at 12:53 am

This is just crap… who knows what’s in this bill. They always put stuff in there that has nothing to do with what the so called bill is for. I’m beating there is some really unsavory stuff in this one.

I don’t need big brother or big sister looking over my shoulder to protect me, more likely they are picking my pocket while I’m not looking. Notice how you never hear about this stuff till it’s already passed. They just slipped another one by us!
- Guest
  February 8, 2010 at 3:54 pm
  
  Read it for yourself: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h4061/text
  
  BTW, the text of bills is always available online. So before you go bemoaning what might be in a bill … take a minute to read it for yourself. To do less is to be unpatriotic.
Hank Castello
February 7, 2010 at 10:48 am

No details about the bill? Not even a link? (Thankfully someone did finally post that!)

This article is pretty short on information.

As for the poster who says, “Americans more or less invented both the computer and the Internet”..

..Tim Berners Lee was British. America is great, but it’s a big world out there, we shouldn’t be so myopic.
- Tom
  February 7, 2010 at 4:35 pm
  
  Yeah.. You always write nice stuff Hank and I enjoy your articles but why don’t you actually read the bill and give us some details? Guess that’s a lot to ask considering the convoluted nature of the language often used in these bills. We’ll have to do it ourselves.
  
  What has me worried is the kinda junk I’m seeing in TIME Magazine and the NY Times. Check out Paul Joseph Watson’s article: http://tiny.cc/WsVN0
  - Tom
    February 7, 2010 at 4:39 pm
    
    Sorry, I meant Mike.. Not Hank. Duh. Sorry. Hank replied to Mike’s article. My bad. Whatever.. lol.. go read the bill.. I’m headed that way now.
- Guest
  February 8, 2010 at 3:57 pm
  
  Tim Berners-Lee (bless him) simply published his subset of the SGML, that he called “HTML”, and coined the term “world wide web”. He did nothing to help invent the computer or the Internet.
Thomas
February 7, 2010 at 12:08 pm

Likely, at least from my first glance at this bill we are spending (for the most part) 400 million of our tax dollars to learn what we already know.
Gin
February 8, 2010 at 10:16 pm

I think it’s great that security is provided online and maybe one day anybody attacking somebody will be auto-shut down? a silly notion maybe, but a nice one, least I think so.