Legislative Activity
Cybersecurity Legislation
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) announced that she plans to introduce legislation soon that will offer tax credits to businesses that make investments in cybersecurity protections. Under her proposal, businesses would be able to claim a credit worth up to 30 percent of the costs of investment in new, qualified cyber defenses. The proposal would also provide a tax credit for up to 10 percent of the costs that it takes to maintain the improvements for the future. Her legislation would allow businesses to apply the tax credit to internally developed software as long as it meets the goals of the Cybersecurity Framework that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was tasked with developing in President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity Executive Order (EO).
In addition, Sen. Gillibrand’s staff also indicated that she plans to reintroduce one of her cybersecurity bills, the International Cybercrime Reporting and Cooperation Act, which she sponsored along with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in the 112th Congress. The bill would require an annual report that documents the extent of cybercrime in foreign countries and the effectiveness of the law enforcement systems in each country.
Executive Branch Activity
NIST Cybersecurity Framework
With the government shutdown still in effect, it is unclear whether NIST will release its Cybersecurity Framework on Thursday, October 10 as it had originally planned to do under the EO. Although NIST has indicated that the Cybersecurity Framework is almost complete, most of the NIST staff working on this issue were furloughed. The Department of Homeland Security is also scheduled to release its updated National Infrastructure Protection Plan on Thursday but its release is also uncertain.
