HR 1030 Introduced – Cyberattack Measurement

Last week Rep. Wilson (R,SC) introduced HR 1030, the Cyber Attack Standards of Measurement Study. The bill would require the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to conduct a study on measuring and quantifying damage from cyber incidents.

This bill is virtually identical to HR 2708 that was introduced by Wilson in the 114^th Congress. That bill was incorporated in the final version of Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 as §313 of Division N, the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 {PL 114-113 (129 STAT. 2920)}.

Commentary

In my post on HR 2708 I noted that Wilson was not a member of the House Intelligence Committee so that there was little chance of that bill being considered in Committee. It was never taken up by the Committee, but it did apparently attract the attention of someone in the Republican leadership (or, more likely, their staff) so that it was added to the Cybersecurity Act.

What is so odd here is that Wilson is not aware that the language from HR 2708 was added to the Cybersecurity Act and felt that it was necessary to re-introduce this bill. Part of this is due to the way that the Cybersecurity Act was put together at the last minute with little communication with the members of Congress and that is part of the reason for the attempt to repeal that portion of the spending bill.

Since it has been well over a year now since the spending bill was passed, the introduction of this bill calls into question how well Wilson and his staff are working with their fellow Republicans. It is really sad that the wording of his original bill was included in a larger bill (not an unusual occurrence) and no one thought that he was influential enough to notify.