Steve Lynch: “I think we all agree that Federal agency Web sites must be secure in order to protect taxpayers from being the victims…”

“I think we all agree that Federal agency Web sites must be secure in order to protect taxpayers from being the victims of an information security breach. For that reason, I support the measure before us, the Safe and Secure Federal Websites Act. The recent data breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus, and other retail establishments affected more than 100 million Americans. The importance of information security cannot be overstated. It is the responsibility of Congress to ensure that the Federal Government is not the source of these types of data breaches and to ensure that the personally identifiable information of American citizens is not compromised through Federal Web sites. This bill would require agency chief information officers to certify to Congress the functionality and security of new or substantially modified Web sites that contain personally identifiable information. It would also require that existing Web sites that contain personally identifiable information meet these security requirements within 90 days. We are not known for our speed around here, so I am not entirely sure that that will be enough for agencies to secure existing Web sites. I hope, as this bill moves forward in the legislation, the timeliness issue is addressed. However, overall, these requirements are positive, beginning steps in preventing harmful data breaches within the Federal Government.…”