U.S. Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) and James Comer (R-KY) introduced Tuesday legislation to bolster the federal government’s cyber defenses in the wake of a series of high-profile cyberattacks.
Maloney, chairwoman of the Oversight and Reform Committee, and Comer, ranking member of the Oversight and Reform Committee, recently detailed the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2022 (FISMA 2022). In their announcement of the measure, they cited the SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange Server hacks, in addition to vulnerabilities discovered in Apache Log4j software as examples of the legislation’s importance.
“As we made clear in our hearing, ensuring the federal government’s cyber resilience is a bipartisan priority,” Maloney said. “Ranking Member Comer and I are introducing legislation to ensure that federal agencies can keep pace with the challenges of the constantly evolving cyber frontier. Nation-state adversaries like Russia and China, as well as other threat actors, present a constant danger.”
According to Maloney, the bill elevates the nation’s federal cyber defenses to the next level, ensuring federal IT systems aid preparation and response to present cyber challenges.
“The federal government maintains extensive public records containing sensitive information on all Americans and businesses,” Comer said. “Recent cyberattacks make it clear we need a modern update to the federal government’s cybersecurity practices to better protect against, quickly fix and deter future damaging digital intrusions that can harm our economy and impact Americans’ daily lives.”