Fergie's Tech Blog

Revised Cyber Security Bill Introduced in U.S. Senate

Jaikumar Vijayan writes on ComputerWorld:

A revised version of a cybersecurity bill first proposed last year was introduced again in the U.S. Senate today, notably without a controversial provision that would have given the President authority to disconnect networks from the Internet during a national emergency.

The bill, called the Cybersecurity Act, is sponsored by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). It seeks to improve national cybersecurity preparedness by fostering a closer collaboration between the government and the private sector companies, which own a vast portion of the country's critical infrastructure.

The bill contains several provisions designed to encourage the growth of a trained and certified cybersecurity workforce, promote public awareness of cybersecurity issues and to foster and fund research leading to the development of new security technologies.

It would require agency heads to provide information on their cybersecurity workforce plans including recruitment, hiring and training details.

posted by Fergie @ 3/17/2010 05:09:00 PM