David Valdez Posts

In December of last year I reported that Senate Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell were in talks on how best to approach cybersecurity reform. Senator Reid expressed preference for a comprehensive and holistic approach, and Senator McConnell expressed a preference for a piecemeal approach to reform.So far, it appears that the piecemeal approach has prevailed. Senate Staff for the Commerce and Homeland Security Committees have begun floating several provisions of what may ultimate ...

I am quite certain this week will go down as a milestone for the Internet.  For several weeks opposition against the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Senate version Protect IP Act started snowballing and culminated into a day of protest by some of the Internet’s biggest companies, such as Wikipedia, Google, and Reddit to name a few. The protest called for a day of online blackouts.  Wikipedia shut down access to its website, and Google added a blackout banner over its iconic Google search engine. ...

Last week, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence unanimously passed out of committee the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 3523). The bill would “permit cybersecurity service providers and businesses that operate their own cybersecurity systems to share information related to potential cybersecurity threats with other businesses and the federal government. Such threats include efforts to interfere with a cybersecurity network, or threats involving the the ...

For those who have been following the roller coaster ride of whether comprehensive cybersecurity reform will be accomplished this legislative session, there have been some interesting developments that took place within the last 24 hours.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter yesterday informing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that cybersecurity legislation will be introduced after the December recess. This letter prompted a reply letter from Sen. McConnell advising Sen. Reid to introdu ...

Earlier this week a very significant development took place that went fairly unnoticed.  Congressman Greg Walden, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, unveiled legislation with the purpose of improving process and transparency at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).This move was significant because the FCC is an independent agency that has been at odds over what has turned into a partisan issue: net neutrality.  The FCC has been criticized for issuing last ...

The Deficit Reduction Super Committee and looming re-election campaigns have taken all the air of out of the room. It seems that despite best efforts by Congress to focus on reforming cybersecurity laws and regulations, the environment looks challenging for current proposals to pass during this legislative session. The Republican Cybersecurity Task Force, chaired by Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-TX), recently issued its report with a list of recommendations for reforming the nation’s cybersecuri ...

Earlier this week the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade held a hearing entitled “Understanding Consumer Attitudes About Privacy.”  Subcommittee Chairman Bono Mack stated that “despite everything that I have heard in our previous hearings, I still remain somewhat skeptical right now of both industry and government. Frankly, I don’t believe industry has proven that it’s doing enough to protect American consumers, while government.  Unfortunately, tends to overreach whenever it com ...

Earlier this week, Congressman Fred Upton, chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a bipartisan letter to the General Accountability Office to “to examine the government’s role in addressing cybersecurity challenges.” Rep. Upton asked that the GAO to “identify actions taken by the appropriate federal agencies to address cybersecurity challenges; security features, potential vulnerabilities, or existing problems on consumer products and services; and main non-U.S. suppl ...

Earlier this year the U.S. Secret Service in coordination with Verizon and the Dutch National High Tech Criminal Unit released the 2011 Data Breach Investigations Report.An interesting outcome of the report is that in 2010 cyber attacks decreased significantly from earlier years, but the number of actual breaches was the highest ever. A possible reason for outcome is that hackers are no longer going after the big targets in large numbers, but instead are focusing their efforts on smaller and mor ...

Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, (CFAA).  The CFAA was passed initially in 1986 to impose criminal liability for hacking computers and IT systems owned by the federal government and financial institutions.  Since then there have been numerous amendments to the CFAA, and most recently as a result of the enactment of the USA Patriot Act.The CFAA makes it a crime for any individual to access a federal or financial “computer” ...