Two more cybersecurity bills approved in House

The first was H.R. 2096, the Cybersecurity Enhancement act. The bill would coordinate federal research and development on cybersecurity, and establish a program for training federal cybersecurity experts. The bill also authorizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology to set security standards for federal computer systems.

{mosads}Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the sponsor of the bill, said that all federal computer networks have suffered attacks, and said his bill would help blunt those attacks.

“This bill will harden those federal networks and make them less vulnerable to such an attack,” McCaul said.

McCaul’s bill was passed 395-10.

The second was H.R. 3834, the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development act. This bill would update and modernize the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991, which established what is now a $4 billion federal research program on computing and networking systems.

For example, the bill would redirect research goals to reflect new technologies and breakthroughs such as “big data,” or techniques for analyzing large sets of data, and would also set up a program aimed at identifying gaps in cloud computing research.

This bill, from Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Ralph Hall (R-Texas), was approved in a voice vote.