Senate passes Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act

On October 27, the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2015 in a 74-to-21 vote. CISA was passed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in March before moving to the Senate, and will now be reconciled with legislation passed by the House of Representatives.

The bill creates additional incentives to increase voluntary sharing of cybersecurity threat information between the private sector and the federal government while protecting individual privacy and civil liberties interests. CISA also offers liability protection to the private sector.

CISA supporters believe the bill will ease the sharing of threat data, which will help private companies secure their systems. IBM has endorsed the bill, saying that “Sharing technical details on the latest digital threats is critical to strengthening America’s cyberdefenses.”

Critics of the bill worried that it does not properly protect privacy, including Apple, who released a statement saying the company did not support the current CISA proposal and that customer security should not come at the expense of their privacy. Others have expressed concerns that the bill does little to address flawed cybersecurity.

The bill was passed with the privacy concerns unresolved.

For more information on CISA, please follow the links below.
S. 754 – Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015
Senate passes cybersecurity information sharing bill despite privacy fears, The Washington Post