The American Bankers Association today joined nearly three dozen associations in urging lawmakers to reauthorize the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act for an additional 10 years, saying the law is vital in an era of artificial intelligence-enabled cyber threats.
CISA was passed by Congress in 2015 following an Office of Personnel and Management data breach that exposed the private information of millions of government employees and contractors. The House and Senate passed separate versions of CISA reauthorization earlier this year, so the legislation is now in reconciliation to work out the differences.
In a joint letter, the associations said CISA has become a foundational component of the nation’s cybersecurity by allowing voluntary sharing of cyber threat indicators and defensive measures between private entities and the federal government. The case for a long-term reauthorization has only grown more urgent as AI has advanced, they said.
“Recent incidents have demonstrated that advanced AI systems can identify and exploit software vulnerabilities at machine speed, collapsing the window between the discovery of a weakness and its use in an attack,” they said. “AI tools are also making sophisticated cyber capabilities cheaper, faster and easier to use, allowing threats to spread and adapt in real time. In this environment, the speed and breadth with which defenders share information determines whether they keep pace
