Hire More Heroes Act of 2015--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, today I rise to speak about the Nation's cyber security. Prior to being elected to the Senate, I spent nearly 12 years working at a cloud computing company. This is a company we started from virtually nothing. We took the company public, and we grew to over 1,000 employees. It became a leading cloud computing company in the customer experience sector. I have seen firsthand the opportunities created by advances in technology, but I have also seen the power Big Data holds because our information becomes currency for both companies and for hackers.

These risks are even greater when they impact our children, and as the daddy of four children, I know the importance of maintaining a close relationship between the parents and their children's school. Today, student electronic records are used in schools across the country, and updates can be easily made and can follow a student from one school to another. This more accurately reflects the nature of students' movements within the school system.

But at a time when overseas hackers are fighting to gain access to any information they can, these technological gains also come with some risks. Securing students' digital information is critical to ensuring that our kids' privacy is protected. That is why I am grateful and proud to announce that I joined Senator Blumenthal in introducing the SAFE KIDS Act.

The Safeguarding American Families from Exposure by Keeping Information and Data Secure--the SAFE KIDS Act--protects student privacy by establishing clear parameters for third-party operators when using data collected from students. This bipartisan legislation empowers parents to control access to their children's information because keeping personally identifiable information secure will lead to a uniform way to secure our students' data. By placing that power back in the hands of the students, in the hands of the parents, and in the hands of the schools, we can make progress toward protecting the privacy of our children because our schools and our kids aren't the only ones at risk for a serious breach.

This week we are debating ways to provide the certainty and resources needed to improve our Nation's infrastructure--our roads, our bridges, our ports, our highways--but recent news reminds us that we must also consider the security of the cars that are driving on our roadways. In fact, just in the past week, news broke that Fiat Chrysler announced a recall of 1.4 million vehicles due to a vulnerability that could allow hackers to disable the vehicles on the highways. In fact, through the radio of a Jeep Cherokee, hackers disabled the vehicle's transmission as a driver drove onto a public highway in St. Louis. This episode is telling in that cyber hacks can affect every sector of our economy, from the financial sector to our automotive manufacturers.

Our military installations across the globe are also vulnerable to an attack, according to a new report from the GAO. In fact, our utility systems that provide water, electricity, and other essential services to our military installations worldwide have limited defenses against cyber attacks. Report details that the industrial control system--ICS--the computers that monitor or operate physical utility infrastructure, ``have very little in the way of security controls and cybersecurity measures in place.'' In fact, in a recent July 25 Military Times article, they cite: ``An example of a successful cyber-physical attack through an ICS was the `Stuxnet.' '' It was a computer virus that was used to attack Iranian centrifuges in 2010. By hacking the Iranian nuclear facility's ICS, the centrifuges were made to operate incorrectly, causing extensive damage.

The fears of a massive cyber security breach don't only rest in the Pentagon. Just yesterday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on ABC's ``This Week'' that a cyber attack by the Islamic State is one of the terrorist group's biggest emerging threats to our country. In fact, during the interview, Attorney General Lynch noted that the terrorist group now boasts over 20,000 English language Twitter followers. Our country's most sensitive data can be in the hands of our enemies at the mere click of a button or press of a screen.

As I speak today, we have yet to obtain answers from the Obama administration on the scope and the perpetrators from the massive hack at the Office of Personnel Management. This attack has paralyzed the Obama administration. They haven't put in place any real, meaningful reforms at OPM. I have called for Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour's resignation since June 24. Yet she still remains in her post and we still don't have any concrete answers for the 21 million-plus Federal employees who were victims of this attack.

We must do more. We must act more quickly and more nimbly than those seeking to wage a terror attack on our Nation's cyber security infrastructure.

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