House OKs Cybersecurity Research BillHouse OKs Cybersecurity Research Bill

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed and sent to President Bush legislation authorizing the National Science Foundation to create cybersecurity research centers as well as undergraduate-program grants and community-college grants and fellowship that focus on cybersecurity. The Cyber Security Research and Development Act, which authorizes spending of $903 million over five years, also charges the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create program grants for partnerships between academia and industry, new post-doctoral cybersecurity programs, and a new program to encourage senior researchers in other fields to work on computer security.

As the House Science Committee's Research Subcommittee chairman Nick Smith, R-Mich., notes, the bill's passage comes weeks after a cyberattack crippled 13 servers that manage Internet traffic. "While this hour-long attack went nearly unnoticed by routine computer users, a longer attack could cripple communication, infrastructure operations, and even national security efforts," he said in a statement. "We cannot allow attacks like this to happen again. As we move forward in our war against terrorism, it will be as important for us to secure cyberspace as it will be for us to secure the homeland against malicious attack."

The bill is virtually the same as the version the House passed Feb. 7. Minor amendments, negotiated with the Senate, include making the language compatible with the Department of Homeland Security Act, creating a trainee program to increase the number of faculty prepared to teach college-level courses in cybersecurity, directing the NIST to develop checklists that detail the security settings and options that are available on federally procured hardware and software, and ensuring that students and universities that participate in the program comply with federal immigration laws.