Earlier this month Rep Taylor (R,TX) introduced HR
5394, the Strengthening State and Local Cybersecurity Defenses Act. The
bill would amend 6
USC 659; adding a number of coordination, education and assistance responsibilities
to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) charter to
provide cybersecurity support to a wide variety of public and private entities
in the country.
Definitions
The bill would add a new definition to 6
USC 651; ‘entity’. This term would be very broadly defined as including {new
§651(4)}:
• An association, corporation,
whether for-profit or nonprofit, partnership, proprietorship, organization,
institution, establishment, or individual, whether domestic or foreign;
• A government agency or other
governmental entity, whether domestic or foreign, including State, local,
Tribal, and territorial government entities; and
• The general public.
New CISA Coordination Responsibilities
The bill would add a new paragraph (n) to 6
USC 659, entitled ‘Coordination’. That paragraph would require CISA to
coordinate (to the extent practicable) with Federal and non-Federal entities
(specifically including the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center)
to:
• Conduct exercises with Federal
and non-Federal entities;
• Provide operational and technical
cybersecurity training related to cyber threat indicators, defensive measures,
cybersecurity risks, and incidents to entities to address cybersecurity risks
or incidents, with or without reimbursement;
• Assist entities, upon request, in
sharing cyber threat indicators, defensive measures, cybersecurity risks, and
incidents from and to the Federal Government as well as among entities, in order
to increase situational awareness and help prevent incidents;
• Provide entities timely
notifications containing specific incident and malware information that may
affect such entities or individuals with respect to whom such entities have a
relationship;
• Provide and periodically update
via a web portal and other means tools, products, resources, policies, guidelines,
controls, procedures, and other cybersecurity standards and best practices and
procedures related to information security;
• Work with senior Federal and
non-Federal officials, including State and local Chief Information Officers,
senior election officials, and through national associations, to coordinate a
nationwide effort to ensure effective implementation of tools, products,
resources, policies, guidelines, controls, procedures, and other cybersecurity
standards and best practices and procedures related to information security to
secure and ensure the resiliency of Federal and non-Federal information
systems, including election systems;
• Provide, upon request,
operational and technical assistance to entities to implement tools, products,
resources, policies, guidelines, controls, procedures, and other cybersecurity
standards and best practices and procedures related to information security,
including by, as appropriate, deploying and sustaining cybersecurity
technologies, such as an intrusion detection capability, to assist such entities
in detecting cybersecurity risks and incidents;
• Assist entities in developing
policies and procedures for coordinating vulnerability disclosures, to the
extent practicable, consistent with international and national standards in the
information technology industry;
• Ensure that entities, as
appropriate, are made aware of the tools, products, resources, policies,
guidelines, controls, procedures, and other cybersecurity standards and best
practices and procedures related to information security developed by the
Department and other appropriate Federal entities for ensuring the security and
resiliency of civilian information systems; and
• Promote cybersecurity education
and awareness through engagements with Federal and non-Federal entities.
Moving Forward
Taylor and four of his cosponsors {Ranking Member Rogers
(R,AL), Green (D,TX), Guest (R,MS) and Slotkin (D,MI)} are members of the House
Homeland Security Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration.
This bill will almost certainly be considered in Committee early next year.
There is nothing in the language of the bill that would engender any significant
opposition to the bill.
When the bill is considered (and it is likely to reach the
floor) it will receive significant bipartisan support. When it is considered on
the floor of the House it will be considered under the suspension of the rules
process; limited debate, no floor amendments and will require a super-majority
to pass.
Commentary
This is another one of the cybersecurity bills being considered
this session that are purely motherhood and apple pie attempts by Congress to
make it look like they are doing something about cybersecurity. There is
nothing in the bill that CISA is not already doing or DHS has not been doing
for quite some time before before the investiture of CISA.
If Taylor really wants this bill to accomplish something, he
could straighten out the definitions in §659 that officially (though not
actually in practice) limits CISA from looking at control system security, by
excluding all but pure information technology systems from their purview.
Again, I would refer Taylor, and the Committee Staff, to my blog
post from February where I discuss the cybersecurity definition problem in
detail and provide legislative language to correct those problems.
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