From: U.S. Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs
In Light of Recent FISMA Report, Lawmakers Urge Agency to Complete Critical Cybersecurity Revisions
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Ranking Member and Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Shaun Donovan, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), requesting an update on efforts to complete and issue revisions to Circular A-130, which establishes OMB’s official policy and guidance on information technology management and cybersecurity for federal agencies.
Circular A-130 was first issued in the 1980s and has not been revised in more than 15 years despite the ever-evolving nature of cyber threats and repeated calls for updates dating back to 2005. To enhance federal network security and more quickly transition federal agencies to continuous and automated cybersecurity monitoring, Congress passed the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014. Among other things, the Act required OMB to update Appendix III of Circular A-130 by December 2015 “to eliminate inefficient or wasteful reporting.” It also requires OMB to “provide quarterly briefings to Congress on the status of the amendment or revision.”
“According to the most recent FISMA annual report, OMB is currently in the process of significantly revising Circular A-130 and has asked for public comment on the proposed revisions,” the Senators wrote. “We appreciate OMB’s work to update Circular A-130, but also emphasize the importance of completing this revision in a timely manner. We request that you provide us with a date by which you plan to issue revisions to Circular A-130, and that OMB briefs our staffs on the status of the update within 30 days of this letter and quarterly thereafter until its completion.”
The text of the letter can be found below and in PDF form here.
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