Congress has approved two bills that seek to reform the existing cybersecurity law and assist the Department of Homeland Security in recruiting and retaining cyber personnel, GovInfoSecurity reported Wednesday.
Eric Chabrow writes the Federal Information Security Management Act reform bill would require agencies to implement continuous monitoring of their information systems for security.
The House also passed the Homeland Security Cybersecurity Workforce Assessment Act to help DHS identify the needed cybersecurity skills and align the types of jobs with those skills, according to the report.
Under the reform bill, the DHS secretary will work with the Office of Personnel Management director to determine cybersecurity work categories and specialty areas that they deem necessary for the DHS cybersecurity workforce, the report says.
The Senate also passed a legislation to authorize DHS’ cybersecurity and communications integration center to share cybersecurity data and analysis with the private sector and provide incident response to companies and agencies, Chabrow reports.
Phyllis Schneck, DHS deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity,  told a Senate committee the bill would define DHS’ responsibilities and help the department to respond to vulnerabilities, GovInfoSecurity reports.
