A new government agency is on its way after the House of Representatives passed a bill paving the way for its creation. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA (you’ve got to love how they added the extra “security” in there so they wouldn’t have an acronym conflict with the Central Intelligence Agency), will be an agency under the Department of Homeland Security. The bill creating it, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act, was passed unanimously and is expected to be signed into law by the president shortly.
CISA will reorganize the existing National Protection and Programs Directorate and will have domain over both cybersecurity and security for physical infrastructure. The plans are to streamline the NPPD’s operations and help DHS to recruit top cybersecurity personnel and work more efficiently with private and government entities in charge of physical and non-physical infrastructure.
Passage of the CISA Act shows that the US government is taking cybersecurity seriously. This writer just hopes they come up with a really cool agency seal.