House Committee on Homeland Security reintroduces bill to combat US critical infrastructure cyber threats

A bill that intends to decrease cyber threats against the country’s critical infrastructure is getting a second chance.

On April 8, House Homeland Security Committee Republicans announced that Rep. Andy Ogles and Chairman Mark E. Green reintroduced the Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act. If passed, the bill will establish a joint task force, led by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI, which will provide briefings that include analysis of current tactics used by state-sponsored threat actors and resources that can potentially combat these threats to Congress each year for five years.

The bill, originally introduced by Congresswoman Laurel Lee and co-sponsored by Green and Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party chair John Moolenaar in September 2024, was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives in December 2024 shortly before the new congress convened in January. Lee and Moolenaar have joined Ogles and Green as co-sponsors on the reintroduced bill.

Typhoon wave. The bill comes after a year of big headlines involving state-sponsored hacking groups from China. In September 2024, Salt Typhoon executed what has been described as the “worst telecom hack” in the country’s history. The threat group was able to infiltrate nine telecommunications providers, including Verizon and AT&T, and allegedly targeted the data of phones used by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

That same year, SecurityScorecard revealed that Volt Typhoon, another China-sponsored advanced persistent threat group, was exploiting a set of outdated routers several months after the the FBI disclosed it had executed a botnet takedown linked to the group.

“The Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act will ensure the federal government has the resources and authority to defend against these threats and hold the CCP accountable,” Chairman Moolenaar said in a statement. “With groups like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon already compromising our systems, it’s critical that we strengthen our defenses to protect national security and our economy.”