House and Senate members propose legislation for CISA to step up cyber defenses for biotech
Brief
Biotechnology doesn’t fall neatly into any one of the 16 government-designated critical infrastructure sectors that receive specialized and focused attention from feds, leading some lawmakers to worry that it’s not getting the protection from cyberattacks and other risks that it needs.
That’s why a bipartisan group of senators and representatives announced legislation Thursday that would place an emphasis at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on defending biotechnology, biomanufacturing and biological data.
The Protecting Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing as Critical Infrastructure Act and the Protecting Biological Data Act are two separate bills with the same group of cosponsors. Both bills would weave biotech into the law that established the Department of Homeland Security.