House panel gives quick approval to cybersecurity bill
A bipartisan bill to combat cyberterrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks won quick approval from the House Science Committee Thursday.
The "Cyber Security Research and Development Act" (H.R. 3394), which cleared the panel by voice vote with no amendments, aims to better protect the nation's critical information infrastructures. The threat of terrorists finding a way to cripple those systems is "real and potentially devastating," according to Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y.
"Experts from industry, government and academia have told us that we simply do not have enough people conducting enough promising research on how to protect our computers and networks," Boehlert said. "And no federal agency is charged with solving that problem."
Boehlert said "it's hard to even come up with a figure" for how much the federal government currently spends on cybersecurity research. "But the number is believed to be in the range of $60 million--a pittance really, considering the risk," Boehlert said.
The bill would authorize nearly $880 million over five years to create new cybersecurity programs within the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. New NSF programs would include cybersecurity research centers, undergraduate program grants and competitive fellowship grants.
The bill also would create new NIST fellowships to attract more researchers to the field of computer and network security. Other new NIST programs would include an in-house research program and a grant program to support joint studies by academic and industry researchers.
Bill sponsors hope to move the legislation to the House floor early next year, according to Boehlert.
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