Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would codify an existing Department of Homeland Security program that provides a variety of tools to help federal agencies strengthen the security of their networks, and extend the program to state and local governments.
The Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) is managed by the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and allows civilian agencies to inventory their network assets, acquire dashboards to monitor for threats on their networks, and sensors to detect and thwart cyber threats.
The Advancing Cybersecurity Through Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Act (S. 3894) could create a pilot program to evaluate the capabilities that are part of CDM with state and local governments to bolster their cyber posture.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“Our bipartisan bill will help the federal government stay on top of emerging cyber threats, as well as provide critical resources to state and local governments to help strengthen their defenses,” Hassan said in a statement.
In addition to codifying the program and opening it for use by state and local governments, the bill also establishes policies for reporting cyber risks and incidents based on data collected by CDM, directs DHS to deploy new CDM technologies as the program evolves and to enhance cloud security, and require DHS produce a strategy so the program shifts with changes to the threat landscape.