US state CIOs endorse cybersecurity Act

The US National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) has endorsed a new Bill introduced in the Senate in June that would provide additional resources for state and local governments to safeguard against cyber threats.

The proposed amendments to the Homeland Security Act would provide additional federal grant funding for cybersecurity projects.

The legislation, S. 1846, also proposes a pilot deployment of technologies for local governments to identify and filter malicious network traffic, capabilities which are currently only available on a federal level.

Another priority of the Bill is encouraging greater communication between the federal Department of Homeland Security and state and local officials in terms of threat information sharing.

This would chiefly involve deeper collaboration between the department and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a nationwide cyber threat prevention, protection, response and recovery service.

“States are the primary agents for delivering a host of critically important federally funded services on behalf of the federal government,” NASCIO President and Delaware CIO James Collins said.

“For our CIOs and CISOs, this legislation would provide them with additional tools, resources and expertise to counteract a continuous barrage of cyber threats. We urge the Senate to pass S. 1846.”

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