WASHINGTON — After several false starts this year, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on a major cybersecurity bill backed by the banking industry.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act would allow for greater sharing of cyber threat information between government and the private sector and provide businesses with certain liability protections for doing so. The bipartisan legislation passed out of the Intelligence Committee 14-1 in May, but has yet to prevail on the chamber floor.
"Passage of CISA would be an important step towards improving our defenses against cyber threats, but the Senate's work must not stop there. We urge the Senate to be bold in its fight against cyber criminals by expediting consideration of legislation to establish a strong, but scalable, national data security standard to safeguard sensitive and personal consumer data," CUNA, NAFCU and a number of other financial trade groups said in a joint letter to the Senate Tuesday.
Lawmakers began debating the bill — including a series of proposed amendments — on Tuesday evening. A procedural vote on the measure could come as early as Thursday afternoon.
Supporters of the legislation made an unsuccessful bid in June to add CISA to the Defense Department spending package and lawmakers again failed to secure a vote before the August recess, despite a big push to bring the measure to the floor.
The House passed similar information-sharing legislation in April.
