Bill Boosting .Gov Defenses Passes Senate Committee

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

The Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 passed unanimously out of the Senate Homeland Security Committee Wednesday (July 29).

According to the office of Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the bill, as amended, now incorporates all the key provisions of his FISMA Reform Act, which he introduced last week with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) and others in the wake of the massive hack of the Office of Personnel Management.

Warner's bill would give federal agency websites, like FCC.gov, more cybersecurity help from the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is already charged with protecting the .gov domain name, but the bill expands that authority.

“The attack on OPM was a painful illustration of how much work we have to do to secure the ‘.gov’ domain. Today the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee took an important step by approving legislation to strengthen cybersecurity across the federal government, including key provisions from the bill Senator Collins and I introduced last week to give DHS the tools it needs to better protect civilian networks,” said Warner following committee passage.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.