The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) today issued a briefing to members of the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Federal Agencies and other Critical Infrastructure Sector Leaders titled “Progress as Two Steps Forward and One Step Back: Analysis of H.R. 1560 Title I and Title II (H.R. 1731).”

The briefing is a detailed analysis of H.R. 1560 Title I (Protecting Cyber Networks Act) and Title II (National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act), which passed the House of Representatives and was formally received in the Senate April 27th, 2015. Since then, the bill – along with most other cybersecurity legislation – has taken a back seat to the fierce debate over the surveillance authority given to the federal government through section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act which is set to expire May 31, 2015 at midnight. The Senate failed to pass the U.S.A Freedom Act which was approved with bi-partisan support (388 – 88) by the House of Representatives and, as of 8am EST today, has yet to offer an alternate solution to avoid the government’s authority to fully dissipate. ICIT expects that H.R. 1560 and other cybersecurity legislation will become areas of focus once the crisis over the expiring Patriot Act authorities is resolved.

This analysis covers, among other topics, the bills position on:

the use of “hack-backs” and offensive cybersecurity

the use of data and information sharing mechanisms for surveillance of citizens

support and requirements for small and medium businesses

liability protection for companies who engage in cybersecurity threat indicators (CTIs)

expansion of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Center (NCCIC)

the creation of a Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC) at the Department of National Intelligence

scrubbing CTI of personal identifiable information (PII)

ICIT would like to thank the following experts for contributing to this brief:

Drew Spaniel (ICIT Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Mellon University)

Rob Roy (ICIT Fellow – Federal Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Public Sector, HP)

Cynthia Cullen (ICIT Fellow – Security Strategist, Northeast, HP)

Stan Wisseman (ICIT Fellow – Security Strategist, Southeast, HP)

Dan Waddell (ICIT Fellow – Director, Government Affairs, (ISC)2)

CLICK HERE TO READ A COPY OF THIS BRIEF