Republican lawmaker introduces new cyber deterrence bill

Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) on Wednesday rolled out a new cyber deterrence bill that aims to establish a process for the federal government to identify, deter and respond to state-sponsored cyberattacks against the United States.

The bipartisan legislation, the Cyber Deterrence and Response Act of 2018, lays out a three-step process that would require the sitting president to identify who the aggressors are and designate them as “critical cyber threats,” and then impose sanctions in response to the malicious cyber activity.

The president can decide to issue additional sanctions against foreign nations that he has determined have had any degree of involvement in the hostile cyberattack, or decide to waive the sanctions on a case-by-case basis for up to a year.

The legislation also says the president may issue both travel- and nontravel-related sanctions.{mosads}

The purpose of the bill would be to “name and shame” the entities carrying out such attacks against the U.S. 

“With a keystroke, countries can disrupt our networks, endanger our critical infrastructure, harm our economy, and undermine our elections,” Yoho said in a statement.

“State-sponsored cyberattacks are increasing exponentially from China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia and it is vital that we take the necessary steps to thwart these potentially devastating attacks,” he added.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and ranking member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), as well as Reps. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), Ted Poe (R-Texas), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) all signed on to support the bill.

One congressional aide told The Hill on Wednesday the legislation aims to codify the executive orders former President Obama issued in in 2015, as well as a revised version of the order made in 2016.

Obama issued the latest executive order in December 2016 in response to Russian interference during the presidential election.

The 2015 order, which applied to a broad range of activities a threat actor could carry out against the U.S., was not limited to a specific country.

It stated that the “increasing prevalence and severity of malicious cyber-enabled activities” serve as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller has charged 13 Russian individuals and three Russian groups with carrying out “information warfare” on social media platforms and by other sophisticated means to sow discord across all 50 states.

Trump followed suit in March, handing down sanctions against a handful of Russians for their cyber activity under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act as well as Obama’s 2015 executive order.