In a rare moment of bipartisan and bicameral cooperation, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate introduced legislation geared to help protect the nation’s 27 million small businesses from computer hackers and information security breaches. Entitled the “Small Business Information Security Act of 2008,” the bills (H.R. 6206 and S. 3102, respectively) were introduced June 9. According to a press release from the Senate’s Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, the bill would establish a Small Business Information Security Task Force to:
- Identify information security concerns and the services that address those concerns;
- Make recommendations to the SBA regarding how it can better assist small businesses to both understand cyber-security issues and identify resources to help meet those complex challenges; and
- Promote current programs and services that will help small businesses protect their customers’ valuable information.
“Inspired” by recent high-profile data breaches, bill sponsor Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a statement, “Nearly one-fifth of small businesses do not use virus-scanning for e-mail, [more than] 60 percent do not protect their wireless networks with encryption, and two-thirds do not have an information security plan.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 7:25 am and is filed under Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
