Today, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairwoman of the Oversight and Reform Committee, and Rep. James Comer, Ranking Member of the Oversight and Reform Committee, introduced the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2022. This legislation aims to improve the federal government’s cyber defenses following a string of high-profile cyberattacks, including SolarWinds and the Microsoft Exchange Server hack, as well as vulnerabilities discovered in common Apache Log4j software.
“As we made clear in our hearing, ensuring the federal government’s cyber resilience is a bipartisan a priority. Today, Ranking Member Comer and I are introducing legislation to ensure that federal agencies can keep pace with the challenges of the constantly evolving cyber frontier,” said Chairwoman Maloney. “Nation-state adversaries like Russia and China, as well as other threat actors, present a constant danger. The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2022 elevates our federal cyber defenses to the next level, taking a cutting-edge and strategic approach to ensure federal IT systems can better prepare for and respond to today’s cyber challenges.”
“The federal government maintains extensive public records containing sensitive information on all Americans and businesses. Recent cyberattacks make it clear we need a modern update to the federal government’s cybersecurity practices to better protect against, quickly fix, and deter future damaging digital intrusions that can harm our economy and impact Americans’ daily lives,” said Ranking Member Comer. “I thank Chairwoman Maloney for working in a bipartisan fashion to reform the Federal Information Security Management Act to help federal agencies better address persistent and quickly evolving threats in a flexible manner.”
The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2022, or FISMA 2022, would advance a risk-based cybersecurity posture, modernize and streamline reporting requirements to enhance security through automation, and expand inventories and information-sharing for improved security.
FISMA 2022 also clarifies and streamlines the roles of the National Cyber Director, the Office of Management and Budget, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Chief Information Security Officer, and other federal entities to better coordinate efforts to mitigate and respond to cyber incidents.
FISMA 2022 is currently cosponsored by Oversight Committee Members Reps. Gerald E. Connolly, Jody Hice, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Stephen F. Lynch, Jim Cooper, Jamie Raskin, Bob Gibbs, Pete Sessions, Fred Keller, Shontel M. Brown, Scott Franklin, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
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