Sec. 2. Findings

307 words·~1 min read·/bill/113/s/1638/is/section-2

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Congress finds the following: Information technology is central to the effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability of industrial and commercial services, Armed Forces and national security systems, and the critical infrastructure of the United States. Cyber criminals, terrorists, and agents of foreign powers have taken advantage of the connectivity of the United States to inflict substantial damage to the economic and national security interests of the Nation. The cyber threat is sophisticated, relentless, and massive, exposing consumers in the United States to the risk of substantial harm.

Businesses in the United States are bearing substantial losses as a result of criminal cyber attacks, depriving businesses of hard-earned profits that could be reinvested in further job-producing innovation. Hackers continuously probe the networks of Federal and State agencies, the Armed Forces, and the commercial industrial base of the Armed Forces, and already have caused substantial damage and compromised sensitive and classified information. Severe cyber threats will continue, and will likely grow, as the economy of the United States grows more connected, criminals become increasingly sophisticated in efforts to steal from consumers, industries, and businesses in the United States, and terrorists and foreign nations continue to use cyberspace as a means of attack against the national and economic security of the United States.

Public awareness of cyber threats is essential to cybersecurity. Only a well-informed public and Congress can make the decisions necessary to protect consumers, industries, and the national and economic security of the United States. As of 2013, the level of public awareness of cyber threats is unacceptably low. Only a tiny portion of relevant cybersecurity information is released to the public. Information about attacks on Federal Government systems is usually classified. Information about attacks on private systems is ordinarily kept confidential.

Sufficient mechanisms do not exist to provide meaningful threat reports to the public in unclassified and anonymized form.