Cybersecurity a Top Congressional Priority
Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-ILL.) represents Illinois’s 3rd District. He is ranking member of the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
Small business are vital to the US economy, employing nearly half of the nation’s working population. Despite their importance, their size affords them little to no access to the same information security resources as large companies.
Without significant IT departments or dedicated information security personnel, they may be more at risk of cyberattacks than large enterprises. According to data released last month, 53 percent of American businesses of all sizes suffered a cyberattack in the past year, and of those, 72 percent spent more than $5,000 to investigate and recover. A 2016 report found that 42 percent of small businesses suffered a cyberattack of some kind. These incidents not only hurt individual small business owners, employees and customers, they also hurt American competitiveness.
The US government is taking steps to assist small businesses to protect themselves from cybercrime through improved network security, ensuring that they can compete on a level playing field.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed valuable guidance to aid businesses in securing their networks, including the Cybersecurity Framework for Critical Infrastructure and the Small Business Information Security guide. But many small businesses don’t have the time or resources to figure out how to adapt these guidelines to their needs and implement them. They need more help.
As ranking member of the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) have introduced H.R. 2105, the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act. This bill directs NIST to create clear guidelines, tools, best practices and methodologies specifically for small businesses. It also emphasizes off-the-shelf solutions so that businesses can protect their networked resources better and more cheaply.
Small businesses and their customers will soon be able look to Peer Mountain’s decentralized trust and compliance platform as a data security resource. With its patent-pending PeerchainTM technology, Peer Mountain will help provide the backbone of the American economy with the same level of cyber protection as large organizations. Learn how.
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