It’s been more than 2 years since the Congress passed a landmark bill which incentivized companies in sharing cyber threat data with the government on how the hackers are penetrating their computer networks.
But Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says that only 6 non-federal organizations are sharing such sensitive info with the government, while others are either silent or have shown disinterest.
According to stats provided by Nextgov, from over 190 such entities and 60 federal departments only a handful of them are providing cyber threat data to the Homeland Security’s automated indicator sharing program.
As private companies are showing disinterest in participating in the program, the US Government is trying to strategize the program on an official note with some mandatory stipulations.
“Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) hasn’t lived up to the full potential that I and many of the colleagues had hoped and wanted it to”, said Jim Langevin, a Co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus and a strong supporter of the bill when it passed.
Langevin and his colleagues holed that the CISA would prove as an inspiration to companies operating in America and abroad to share threat info. But the response from them is almost dull. What’s more surprising is the fact that even those listed in fortune 500 are not at all responding.
Therefore, in coming days, DHS will try to outline a new game plan to increase the number as it wants the private sector to be more responsive and contribute more.
Note- In the year 2015, CISA became a law after failing to see light before two successive congresses. It promises threat sharing companies from being sued by the customers of a company whose data has been breached. The idea was to gather all information, prioritize it, combine it with the government’s own store of threat data, collected by intelligence services and share back the results to bolster the nation’s collective cyber defense.
Details of the 6 companies sharing the cyber threat info with DHS will be updated shortly.
