The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) today approved two bills related to cybersecurity and software – the Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Competition Act and the Source Code Harmonization And Reuse in Information Technology (SHARE IT) Act.
The committee’s votes to approve the bills sends them to the full Senate for further consideration.
The panel voted 9-1 to approve the Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Competition Act, which looks to broaden the scope of the President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition.
The President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition is a national competition to reward top cybersecurity professionals in the Federal government. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) currently is looking for contestants for the 2024 competition.
Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the HSGAC, and Mike Braun, R-Ind., introduced the bill last week to expand the competition by including operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS).
“As foreign adversaries continue to test our cybersecurity defenses, it is more important than ever to have a well-equipped workforce that is prepared to repel all cybersecurity threats,” Sen. Peters said when he introduced the legislation. “My bipartisan bill will keep the President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition on the cutting edge as they seek to train our cybersecurity workforce.”
The senators said that OT and ICS are often overlooked by the cybersecurity community, even though they support critical infrastructure networks. The bill would make certain the competition tests for skills relevant to OT and ICS to ensure Federal cyber professionals can effectively work with critical infrastructure sectors.
Separately, the committee voted 10-0 to approve the SHARE IT Act, which would require agencies to share custom-developed source code with each other in an effort to reduce duplicative software contracts across the Federal government.
Chairman Peters and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced the legislation on Jan. 17. The bill would require Federal agencies to publicly list custom code they either make or buy and share this code with other Federal agencies.
“Ensuring the Federal government is sharing code across agencies will save taxpayers money, increase digital efficiency for government services, [and] strengthen security and enable innovation in software,” Sen. Peters said when he introduced the bill.
“This bipartisan bill is a critical step forward in advancing the digital capacity of the Federal government and will benefit Americans as they access government services online,” he added.
Notably, the senators said the bill requires no additional funding, as agencies can choose whether they want to share code via existing government infrastructure such as code.gov, open-source tools like Git, or commercial platforms like GitHub or Bitbucket.
