In a meeting today, a The states Senate committee examined new measures to heighten federal reporting for cybersecurity vulnerabilities that threaten "critical infrastructure". They convened in an effort to establish new back up for state and local governments confronting threats similar ransomware.

A new era in homeland security?

The centerpiece of the March 11 hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security is nib S. 3045, the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2022. First introduced in Dec, the new beak looks to amend the landmark Homeland Security Human activity of 2002 to include new provisions aimed specifically at cybersecurity.

The "Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act" specifically targets instances when the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identifies cyber vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure that they cannot report. The bill authorizes CISA to subpoena for this information when they discover vulnerabilities.

Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) said of the bill:

"This is an incredibly of import piece of legislation. I know there'southward some concern about it, I call up because there'southward misinformation."

Fighting ransomware from the federal level

Another subject of today'southward meeting was the Cybersecurity State Coordinator Act of 2022, which besides looks to expand CISA's purview. Sponsored past Sen. Margaret Hassan (D-NH), the nib looks to spread federal protections coping with cyber threats that states may lack the infrastructure to cope with themselves — specifically citing ransomware.

The Cybersecurity State Coordinator Deed would require the director of CISA to appoint a separate coordinator of cyber defenses for each of the l states. This would facilitate "the sharing of cyber threat data between Federal and non-Federal entities."

Municipal governments have struggled to manage the threat of ransomware. The metropolis government of Atlanta famously fell victim to ransomware back in 2022. More recently, the South African city of Johannesburg experienced a like assault in October of 2022.