S 679 Introduced – Aircraft Cybersecurity

Last week Sen. Markey (D,MA) introduced S 679, the Cybersecurity Standards for Aircraft to Improve Resilience  (Cyber AIR) Act of 2017. This bill is very similar to S 2764 that was introduced in the 114^th Congress and saw no action there.

Differences

There is one significant difference between this bill and S 2764; §5 from the earlier bill is not present in this bill. That section outlined the requirements for the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration to provide annual reports to Congress on “on attempted and successful cyberattacks on any system on board an aircraft” {§5(a) in S 2764}.

Moving Forward

Markey is a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to which the bill was assigned for consideration. Thus, there is a possibility that that Committee could consider this bill. I don’t believe, however, that there have been sufficient change in the composition of the Senate to overcome the opposition that was seen when portions of this bill were proposed by Markey last session as amendments to HR 636, the FY 2017 FAA authorization bill and S 2658, the Senate version of the same bill.

Bills Introduced – 03-21-17

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session there were 54 bills introduced. Of these four may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 1647 To establish a Water Infrastructure Trust Fund, and for other purposes. Rep. Blumenauer, Earl [D-OR-3]

HR 1653 To amend certain provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act, and for other purposes. Rep. Latta, Robert E. [R-OH-5]

S 679 A bill to require the disclosure of information relating to cyberattacks on aircraft systems and maintenance and ground support systems for aircraft, to identify and address cybersecurity vulnerabilities to the United States commercial aviation system, and for other purposes. Sen. Markey, Edward J. [D-MA]

S 680 A bill to protect consumers from security and privacy threats to their motor vehicles, and for other purposes. Sen. Markey, Edward J. [D-MA]

The two water system bills will only receive further mention in this blog if they specifically address facility security or cybersecurity issues.

These two bills from Markey are almost certainly based upon bills that he introduced in the 114^th Congress (S 2764 and S 1806 respectively). Neither bill saw any action in the previous session; perhaps it will be different this time.