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Houses Passes New Cybersecurity Legislation

houseWASHINGTON, D.C. – The House of Representatives passed a bi-partisan bill that is intended to help businesses better protect digital data from hacker attacks with the passage of the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement (NCPA) Act of 2015 with an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 355-63.

The bill is intended to stop cyber criminals in their tracks, and better protect American companies from cyber espionage campaigns from nation states like China, Russia, and Iran.

The bill largely centers around the voluntary sharing of cyber threats with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The bill expands the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) center for integrating cyber threat information is the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) powers.

Details of the bill include:

  • Providing liability protections for the voluntary sharing of cyber threat indicators and defensive measures with the NCCIC or private-to-private.
  • Granting liability protections for private companies to conduct network awareness of their own information systems.
  • Allowing companies to operate defensive measures and conduct network awareness on information systems they own or operate.
  • Enhancing DHS’s already robust Privacy Office to ensure the NCCIC complies with all civilian laws that protect Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.
  • Requiring private companies to ‘scrub’ and remove personal information unrelated to the cybersecurity risk before sharing with the NCCIC or other private entities.
  • Requiring the NCCIC to conduct a second ‘scrub’ and destroy any personal information that is unrelated to the cyber security risk before further sharing with other government entities or private entities.

The bill is expected to be merged with a similar bill now under consideration in the Senate.

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