Review - HR 9259 Introduced – Cybersecurity Skills

Last month, Rep Langevin (D,RI) introduced HR 9259, the Cybersecurity Skills Integration Act. The bill would require the Department of Education to start a pilot grant program to develop a “postsecondary career and technical education programs that integrate cybersecurity education”. The legislation would authorize $10-million to support the pilot program.

Moving Forward

Langevin is not a member of the House Education and Labor Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, but his cosponsor {Rep Thompson (R,PA)} is a member. This means that there should be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. I do not see anything in the bill that would engender any organized opposition, but there is probably not sufficient time for this to work its way through the legislation process before the 117^th Congress ends next month.

I suspect that the bill would receive sufficient bipartisan support to be considered in the House under the suspension of the rules process if it were to make it that far.

Commentary

This is the first piece of cybersecurity legislation that I have seen where it appears that the crafters of the bill really have a basic understanding of the unique dangers related to attacks on industrial control systems in process industries. In each of the first two parts of the definition of ‘cybersecurity education’ references are made to ‘control systems and operational technology’. It is in the third part of the definition, however, where those potential dangers are really addressed:

“(C) training to ensure the continuous physical and environmental safety of the operations of critical infrastructure systems.”

It will be interesting to see if this understanding carries over into future cybersecurity legislation in the 118^th, Congress.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-9259-introduced - subscription required.