Cyber Bill Getting Close…?

Enjoyed a fascinating and very educational trip to Capital Hill last week, calling on various Representatives and Senators to lobby for Silicon Valley interests. The trip was sponsored by Silicon Valley Leadership Group –  I really admire their mission to interact directly with Congress on issues that affect our broad sector – not any one company. While their our many trade associations in DC, the fact that a large group traveled across the country to voice a unified opinion seemed to impress. Our delegation included leaders from large corporations to start-ups, all grappling with the same challenges – immigration, patents, trade issues, and especially high on the list – cyber security.

In light of accelerating attacks, punctuated by the very recent and massive Anthem and Blue Cross/Blue Shield breaches, the word among those we met with was that a bill, a real bill with a real chance of passing, was close. In fact, due to come out of committee within a couple of weeks and go to the House. Senators seem to also understand this is urgent. I felt optimistic that collectively they might actually get something done.

Privacy has been the chief concern about past bills proposed, and why none have made it through to date. We received assurances that the soon-to-be-released reincarnation of CISPA was significantly different and would address many of the previous privacy concerns (why couldn’t they have done that in the first place?).

It was noted that while Government has lots of resources to help defend, Industry must be willing to turn over data needed to enable that defense – 80-85% of malicious code is believed to be in the private sector. Expect the new bill to have safe harbor provisions to protect Service Providers and others who hold our data. We were told that there will be no sharing with the NSA (good they’ve figured that one out) or the DoD – there must be civilian oversight, and all indications were Dept of Homeland Security would be on point.

While it was great to hear optimism among Congress people and their staff who joined the discussions, education of the broader Congressional membership is still a big gap. Hopefully the recent high profile health data breaches, which apparently touched as many as one in four Americans, have been enough to get the attention this issue so critically needs so we could see something fair yet helpful passed this year. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

On a lighter note, Senator McCain was most gracious to pose with those of us who met with him.