DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson issues statement on Cybersecurity Enhancement Act

On July 30, Jeh Johnson released the following statement regarding the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015:

I strongly support the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (S.1869) that was approved unanimously by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday under the leadership of Chairman Ron Johnson and Ranking Member Tom Carper.

Cybersecurity is a top priority for me, for the President, and for this Administration. I am pleased that Congress has recognized that we need to work together to ensure that we have adequate resources and budget, and the legal authorities necessary to pursue the mission.

This bill will strengthen our cyber defenses by requiring all Federal agencies to implement stronger protections and state-of-the-art technologies to defend against cyberattacks. Importantly for DHS, S.1869 would accelerate deployment of a federal intrusion detection and prevention system across the federal government, increasing our visibility as a government into adversary activity. S. 1869 accomplishes this by ensuring agencies understand they are legally permitted to disclose network traffic to DHS for narrowly tailored purposes. S.1869 also sets forth several privacy protections that are consistent with DHS’s current operations and privacy controls.  The House has passed H.R. 1731, which contains similar provisions authorizing the EINSTEIN program.

As cyber threats continue to increase in frequency, scale, sophistication, and severity, we need to be as aggressive in strengthening our defenses.  I thank Chairman Ron Johnson and Ranking Member Tom Carper for their bipartisan leadership on this vital piece of legislation. Now, I urge the Senate to move quickly and pass this bill.

Source: DHS