Strengthening and Enhancing Cyber-Capabilities By Utilizing Risk Exposure Technology Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. NORTON. The bill before us today includes a number of different measures.

The bill includes a measure originally introduced by Senator McCaskill to deal with information technology threats to the Federal acquisition supply chain. The bill would address the serious cybersecurity risks that recently came to light after the discovery of Kaspersky products had been installed on many government computers.

The bill would establish the Federal Acquisition Security Council to facilitate information sharing among Federal agencies regarding supply chain risks when purchasing information technology products and create procedures for evaluating such risks.

The bill would give agencies the authority to mitigate supply chain IT risks and authorizes the Council to recommend excluding suppliers, if warranted.

The bill also would establish a judicial review process and reporting requirements to ensure fairness and accountability if companies are excluded in the future.

In addition, the bill includes several provisions to improve cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, one which was originally authored by Senator Hassan of New Hampshire. It would create a pilot program through which the Department would be authorized to provide a financial reward to those who legitimately come forward to report vulnerabilities on DHS websites and software to prevent exploitation by cyber terrorists, State actors, and criminal organizations.

So-called white hat hackers are an enormous pool of talent that the Federal Government has largely failed to leverage. The bill would also require DHS to put in place policies to ensure that civic-minded hackers can identify and report bugs found on the Department's information systems without breaking the law.

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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend especially for his work on this bill and for his friendship and for our continuing work together.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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