President Trump has signed two bipartisan bills into law establishing a bug bounty pilot program at the Department of Homeland Security and will require the agency to disclose all cyber vulnerabilities. The two bills introduced by Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, aim to strengthen cybersecurity at DHS, Hassan’s office said Friday. 

One legislation will leverage ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities in networks and information technology infrastructure at DHS. The Hack DHS Act will establish a bug bounty program that will use the similar approach of the Department of Defense and major tech companies. The second bill from Hassan and Portman will also require the DHS to launch a program managingn its vulnerabilities. The Public-Private Cybersecurity Cooperation Act aims to help the agency speed up the process to fix IT issues by regularly disclosing cyber vulnerabilities through the program.

“Our legislation draws upon the vast expertise of hackers and security experts in our country to identify vulnerabilities and report them to the people in positions to fix those flaws in our systems,” Portman said.

A center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has begun to distribute brochures, videos, flyers and other informative materials to increase awareness about foreign intelligence threats and help U.S. companies protect themselves from nation-state actors.

“American companies are squarely in the cross-hairs of well-financed nation-state actors, who are routinely breaching private sector networks, stealing proprietary data, and compromising supply chains,” William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in a statement published Monday.

“The attacks are persistent, aggressive, and cost our nation jobs, economic advantage, and hundreds of billions of dollars,” Evanina added.

The materials under the “Know the Risk, Raise Your Shield” campaign suggest best practices to help the private sector safeguard their data, networks and other assets as well as tackle supply chain risks, spear-phishing, social media deception, economic espionage, foreign travel risks, social engineering and mobile device safety.

NCSC started to disseminate a report on foreign intelligence initiatives, which intend to steal U.S. trade secrets, intellectual property and other proprietary data through cyber space.
 

The Department of Energy plans to award a total of $16M for a research program aimed at integrating new data with computer models in order to accurately represent climate and terrestrial phenomena, the DOE said Friday.

The DOE plans to provide $5M for research into terrestrial events and $11M for atmospheric research on clouds and aerosols for a period of two to three years.

The terrestrial research’s first track will study the movement of nutrients, carbon and water; while the second focus will concentrate on the impact of phenomena such as floods, fires, hurricanes and the rising of sea levels on the vegetation and nutrient cycles of coastal areas.

Atmospheric research under the program will utilize data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement User Facility operated by the DOE Office of Science.

“For decades, DOE has been a leading contributor in advancing our knowledge of both atmospheric and terrestrial processes. This research will result in a better grasp of critical factors affecting the earth system,” said Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar.

The DOE will use a competitive, peer-reviewed process to select universities and nonprofit organizations who will participate in the project.

Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Robin Kelly, D-Ill., have reintroduced a bill intended to reauthorize and modify the role of the federal chief information officer.

The Federal CIO Authorization Act would elevate the executive’s role to that of a presidential appointee who would directly report to the Office of Management and Budget‘s leader, Hurd’s office said Friday.

The bill would also assign a federal chief information security officer who would directly report to the federal CIO as a presidential appointee.

“This bill helps keep the vast information stored by the federal government secure from hackers by making clear that the Federal CIO is in charge of the security of our data across the government,” said Hurd.

The two lawmakers are reintroducing the bill to accommodate a new Congress, following the bill’s previous House passing in November.