Sba Cyber Awareness Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CROW. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3462, the bipartisan SBA Cyber Awareness Act.

As we all know, small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and they are certainly the backbone of my community. However, these small businesses are also increasingly the target of cyberattacks and theft of data and intellectual property.

Unfortunately, Federal agencies are not immune to such attacks either. For more than 20 years, SBA's Office of Inspector General has listed IT security as one of the most serious management and performance challenges facing the agency.

During the pandemic, demand for relief programs like PPP and EIDL have overwhelmed SBA's IT systems. As a result, a glitch in the EIDL application system led to an exposure of personal information of over 8,000 applicants with no public announcement of the data breach until weeks later.

The SBA Cyber Awareness Act would direct SBA to issue an annual report assessing its cybersecurity infrastructure. The bill would also require the SBA to report cyber-threats, breaches, and cyberattacks to the House Small Business Committee and the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee and notify affected individuals and small businesses within 30 days of an incident.

Cyberattacks are one of the biggest threats to our economy, small businesses, and way of life. This bill would ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect the millions of small businesses that the SBA serves and prepare them for 21st century threats.

I would like to thank Chairwoman Velazquez and Ranking Member Luetkemeyer for the bipartisan support and my friend, Young Kim from California, for joining with me on this very important effort.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to join with us and support this bill.

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