With workforce in mind, bipartisan bill proposes incentives for cybersecurity education, and more

The HACKED Act is the work of the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee.

The HACKED Act is actually about making sure people don’t get hacked.

The bipartisan bill — with the full title “The Harvesting American Cybersecurity Knowledge through Education Act” — was introduced Tuesday by four senators who say it would boost cybersecurity education and expand workforce training. The legislation comes as the Trump administration, Congress and industry have all taken steps to boost the cybersecurity workforce through training, recruitment and retention.

“America is facing serious cyberthreats every day in today’s increasingly connected world, yet there is a serious shortage of workers needed to confront this urgent challenge,” Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., one of the cosponsors and the Commerce Committee’s ranking member, said in a statement. “The bipartisan HACKED Act of 2019 would help address this by training cybersecurity educators and skilling American workers to do these jobs, as well as increasing coordination on these issues throughout the government.”

The bill includes proposals to incentivize recruitment of cybersecurity educators, authorizing up to $200,000 for regional alliances and partnerships for cybersecurity education. The act would also zero in on partnerships with local employers and universities on cybersecurity education and cybersecurity workforce issues.

The proposed legislation includes measures that would boost cybersecurity and science education programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Transportation, for example.

The group of lawmakers also propose creating a new White House-level working group through the Office of Science and Technology Policy to boost coordination of federal cybersecurity education and workforce programs.

Other senators behind the bill include Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., John Thune, R-S.D., and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure

• Election official says Tina Peters would be consultant, won’t have access to election systems