From: FierceSmartGrid
By Barbara Vergetis Lundin
Yesterday, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the CyberSecurity Act of 2013 (S 1353), a bipartisan bill recognizing the importance of industry and government to secure cyberassets, and giving credence to the existing mandatory and enforceable cybersecurity standards that currently govern the electric and nuclear sectors. The bill builds on existing regulatory structures, leverages the progress being made under the Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Executive Order, and is another step toward fostering improved government-industry coordination to address the evolving cyberthreats to critical infrastructure.
“The bill covers several important policy elements of the cybersecurity ecosystem, specifically, the focus on public-private collaborations aimed at developing best practices, processes for protecting critical infrastructures from cyber threats and attacks and preparing our cyber warriors for their mission through education, training and certification,” Elizabeth Hyman, CompTIA’s vice president of public advocacy said. “S.1353 is an important step forward as it will create the solid framework that is necessary to address today’s evolving and sophisticated cyberthreats. The bill directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as an authority in this area to ‘protect individual privacy and civil liberties’ as it develops best practices and processes for the critical infrastructure cybersecurity ecosystem.”
The bill will also advance the education of stakeholders and awareness of the steps they can take in the cybersecurity ecosystem to protect against cyberthreats and attacks.
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