Investing.com -- The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act by a 14 to 1 vote on Thursday, a measure that would allow private companies to share more information about cybersecurity threats with government intelligence agencies.
“This legislation, which we will mark up tomorrow, represents compromises on both sides following feedback from the executive branch, private sector and privacy advocates," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, California). "This bill is an important step toward increasing our national and economic security, and I hope that after the committee votes on the bill, Senate leaders will quickly bring it before the full Senate for debate.”
The lone vote against the measure was cast by Sen. Ron Wyden (D, Oregon).
“Cyber-attacks and hacking against U.S. companies and networks are a serious problem for the American economy and for our national security. It makes sense to encourage private firms to share information about cybersecurity threats," Wyden said in a statement. "But this information sharing is only acceptable if there are strong protections for the privacy rights of law-abiding American citizens."
“The most effective way to protect cybersecurity is by ensuring network owners take responsibility for security. Strong cybersecurity legislation should make clear that government agencies cannot order U.S. hardware and software companies to build weaker products, as senior FBI officials have proposed," Wyden added.
The legislative markup came one day after Leo Taddeo, the FBI's head of the cyber division of it New York office, warned of a forthcoming attack that could be similar in scope to the data breach suffered by Sony late last year.
“I think that we would be well-served to prepare for — I won’t say a catastrophic attack, but an attack that has an impact that may shake some confidence-levels," Taddeo said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
In 2013, a report co-sponsored by McAfee Inc. found that global cyber crime had been responsible for causing a $500 billion loss to economies worldwide.