A top Senate Democrat introduced legislation Thursday to extend and rename an expired information-sharing law, and make it retroactive to cover the lapse that began Oct. 1.

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced the Protecting America from Cyber Threats (PACT) Act, to replace the expired Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) that has provided liability protections for organizations that share cyber threat data with each other and the federal government. Industry groups and cyber professionals have called those protections vital, sometimes describing the 2015 law as the most successful cyber legislation ever passed.

The 2015 law shares an acronym with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which some Republicans — including the chairman of Peters’ panel, Rand Paul of Kentucky — have accused of engaging in social media censorship. As CISA 2015 has lapsed and Peters has tried to renew it, “some people think that’s a reauthorization of the agency,” Peters told reporters Thursday in explaining the new bill name.

“There are some of my Republican colleagues who have concerns about CISA as the agency, and I remind them, this is not about the agency,” he said. “It’s about … cybersecurity protections and the ability to have liability protections and to be able to share information. I’ve often heard the chair conflate the two, and I have to continually remind him.”

A House bill also would establish a different name.

Paul has objected to Peters’ attempts on the floor to extend CISA 2015. A shorter-term extension of the law was included in the House-passed continuing resolution to keep the government open, but that bill didn’t advance in the Senate, prompting a shutdown.

Peters’ latest bill, like earlier legislation he co-sponsored with Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., would extend CISA 2015 for 10 years. He rejected the idea of trying to get a shorter-term extension until a longer-term extension could be passed.

“One thing that is very clear from all of the stakeholders is that they need long-term certainty when it comes to these protections, that you can’t operate with just a few-week-patch and then another few-week–patch,” Peters said. “That’s no way to run a business. That’s no way to run a sophisticated cybersecurity operation.”

Michael Daniel, leader of the Cyber Threat Alliance made up of cybersecurity companies, told CyberScoop that his organization hasn’t been affected by the lapse yet, but that’s partially because it’s an organization that was set up with the long term in mind, with a formalized structure that included information-sharing requirements  for members.

The lapse might also not immediately affect other organizations, he said, comparing it to the risks of the government shutdown underway.

“An hour-long lapse doesn’t really do very much, but the longer it goes on, the more you have time for organizations to say, ‘Well, maybe we need to reconsider what we’re doing, maybe we need to think about it differently,’” Daniel said. “The longer it goes on, you start having questions about, ‘Maybe this thing won’t get reauthorized down the road.’ And once you start questioning the long-term prospects, that’s when people start making changes in their behavior.”

Peters said he’s heard from organizations becoming increasingly nervous about the expiration, but didn’t want to comment on whether any had stopped sharing because that’s “sensitive information, important information, and our adversaries should know as little about what’s happening as possible.”

Peters said he wouldn’t comment on his deliberations with Paul, or comment on Paul’s motives for objecting to his floor maneuvers. Paul cancelled a planned markup of his own version of CISA 2015 renewal legislation in September that included language on free-speech guarantees under CISA the agency, with a spokesperson saying Democrats had requested more time and were “not negotiating in good faith.”

Peters told reporters that claim was “absolutely false … the problem is not on our end.”

The revised Peters legislation doesn’t touch on the topic of free speech. Democrats and Republicans have blamed one another for the government shutdown.

“Firstly, this authority will be turned back on when Democrats, including the bill sponsor, vote to reopen the government,” said Gabrielle Lipsky, a spokesperson for Paul. “The Senator has made it clear that a longer-term reauthorization will need robust free speech protections included.”

Peters said he had spoken to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., about getting the bill through Senate procedures. He and Rounds have both been speaking with colleagues to gain backing. The Trump administration also has been lobbying senators to support a CISA 2015 reauthorization.

“I’m confident that if this bill gets to the floor for a vote, it will not only pass, it will pass overwhelmingly,” he said. “And that’s what we’re working to do.”

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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency doesn’t have any plans in place for continuing a threat information-sharing program should a 2015 law that laid the groundwork for its creation expire Wednesday, according to a new watchdog report.

The inspector general report points to yet more potential complications for threat data exchanges between industry and the government should the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, known as CISA 2015, lapse. Already, private-sector groups and cyber professionals have been sounding alarms about what would happen if the law’s legal safeguards disappear — something that’s now almost certain to happen after Tuesday’s expiration deadline is set to transpire without action from Congress.

The IG report takes a look at the Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) program that the Department of Homeland Security established in the year after passage of CISA 2015. The voluntary program was designed to allow the exchange of machine-readable cyber threat indicators (CTIs), like malicious IP addresses, and defensive measures (DMs), defined as activity that protects information systems against cyber threats.

According to the IG, CISA (the agency) has not finalized plans for continued use of the program in the event of the expiration of the 2015 law.

“Without finalizing this plan, CISA could be hindered in how it shares information on cyber threats, which would reduce its ability to protect the Nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber threats,” the report, dated Sept. 26, states.

While creation of the AIS program was one of the most direct outcomes of the passage of CISA 2015, many industry groups do not consider it the most important impact of the law, instead focusing on the legal protections it provides. Still, the IG report details how much activity the AIS program is involved in: 10 million cyber threat indicators shared in 2024.

That figure also points to weaknesses within the program, however, according to the IG. The 10 million indicators is a big jump from the prior calendar year, when the number was 1 million.

“Although the number of CTIs and DMs increased in 2024, CISA continues to rely on a small number of partners to share information,” the report states. “CISA officials attributed recent increases in shared CTIs and DMs to a private-sector partner’s significant contribution. In 2024, this private-sector partner added more than 4 million CTIs and DMs to each of the Federal and public collections — accounting for 89 percent of the public collection and 83 percent of the Federal collection.”

The report doesn’t identify that private-sector partner. An earlier report attributed a steep drop in the sharing of cyber threat indicators to an unnamed federal partner withdrawing from the program.

“CISA’s overreliance on information shared by specific participants may lead to inconsistent results and prevent long-term program growth if top contributing partners stop participating,” the report reads.

There were only 18 federal participants in 2024 in all, and 87 non-federal participants. That’s an increase from last year in both cases, but a fall from the 2020 peak of 304 total participants. Some of those participants, though, are industry-specific information sharing and analysis centers that might include hundreds of organizations.

CISA’s response to the IG’s findings left the program’s future uncertain should the 2015 law expire, according to the report.

“Program officials stated that although CISA continues to be committed to sharing CTIs and DMs in an automated, unclassified machine-readable format such as AIS, the decision on whether to maintain the capability will be based on available resources and leadership’s priorities,” the report states. “CISA officials said if the Act were to expire, they would analyze the value of AIS, including the average operational cost of $1 million per month and a likely reduction in CTI and DM volume, to determine whether resources could be redirected from other agency priorities to support AIS.”

CISA referred requests for comment to the agency’s response contained within the report.

“It is important for readers of this report to understand that automated threat intelligence and information sharing with our global partners and stakeholders remains a priority for CISA, and that there are no immediate or near-term plans to discontinue the Automated Information Sharing [sic] service, regardless of the status of the Cybersecurity Act of 2015,” reads the response from Madhu Gottumukkala, the acting director of CISA. “Subject to available appropriations, CISA remains authorized to operate Automated Information Sharing irrespective of the possible sunset of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 on September 30, 2025, and CISA will continue to modernize and evolve Automated Information Sharing to meet the needs of its partners and stakeholders.”

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Pessimism is mounting about the chances that Congress will reauthorize a cyber threat information-sharing law before it’s set to expire at the end of this month — with no clear path for either a temporary or long-term extension.

Industry groups and the Trump administration have put a lot of muscle into renewing the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA 2015), which they say is a vital tool in the fight against malicious hackers because of the legal protections it provides for organizations to share cyber threat data with each other and the government.

But in recent weeks, multiple efforts to re-up the law have failed or been brushed aside:

• The House inserted a two-month extension of CISA 2015 into a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown, but after the House passed the bill, the Senate voted against the continuing resolution last week. Negotiations about continuing to fund the federal government past the end of this month appear to be at a standstill.
• The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had scheduled a markup of legislation last week introduced by Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., to extend the law with significant changes that drew bipartisan and industry criticism. The panel then abruptly canceled the markup.
• The top Democrat on Paul’s panel, Gary Peters of Michigan, tried to get an unaltered or “clean” 10-year reauthorization of the expiring law passed on the Senate floor with a unanimous consent motion, but Paul objected without explanation, preventing it from advancing.
• House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., sought earlier this month to offer his legislation to extend and alter CISA 2015 as an amendment to the House version of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but the Rules Committee prohibited the amendment from receiving a vote. (A Senate intelligence policy bill had included a 10-year extension, but when senators folded the intelligence authorization bill into that chamber’s version of the NDAA, Paul objected and got it removed.)

All of that leaves an extension of CISA 2015 without a home, and with a key senator, Paul, likely to stand in the way of swift renewal anytime soon. Under the circumstances, “I bet it does” expire, one industry source said of CISA 2015. 

“I’d be pleasantly surprised if it is continued given Paul’s objection,” the source said.

And that could be a big problem for both lawmakers and private-sector organizations.

While it’s unclear exactly how even a temporary lapse in the law might affect cyber information sharing, some have offered dire predictions about how bad it will be. In the legal community, “if you’re giving people a reason not to do something, they won’t do it,” said another industry source. 

If there’s a big breach during a time when the law has expired, the political risks increase, because cyberattack victims are likely to blame the lapse for what happens, said the source, who has extensive cybersecurity policy experience.

Best hopes (until recently)

Advocates had long pinned their hopes that a temporary two-year CISA 2015 renewal would be included in the continuing resolution (CR), given the urgency to avoid a government shutdown and the fact that the law was sent to expire when the fiscal year ends gave Congress a perfect opportunity. The House GOP’s inclusion of that short-term extension language in the CR — and Democrats’ support for it in their own proposal — indicated widespread support for the idea. The CR passed 217-212.

Senate leaders have a tradition of honoring objections on policy matters from the heads of the committees with jurisdiction over those topics when they are up for consideration in other bills. But multiple observers told CyberScoop that they interpreted the inclusion of the CISA 2015 law extension in the House CR as a sign that Senate leaders were prepared to ignore objections from Paul in this case. 

Besides lawmakers and private-sector groups, the Trump administration has been pressing for renewal. Industry and Senate sources say that new National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross has been especially focused on selling lawmakers on the need for action on CISA 2015.

But temporary renewal is now a casualty of the broader fight over a government shutdown, with the Senate voting 44-48 against the CR.

Paul complications

Earlier this month, the House Homeland Security Committee approved Garbarino’s bill to renew CISA 2015 for 10 years by a vote of 25-0. While Democrats questioned whether the legislation should’ve included any changes to the law rather than a “clean” reauthorization, Garbarino’s changes themselves garnered no significant opposition.

That wasn’t the case for the version Paul sponsored and that was scheduled for vote in his committee last week, which would have provided a two-year reauthorization. Industry groups objected to the Paul legislation striking provisions of the 2015 law that provided protections related to cyber threat data sharing with the federal government against disclosure from Freedom of Information Act requests. They opposed a section that would get rid of the law’s section on federal preemption, under which the law supersedes state laws and regulations.

Democrats also raised concerns about several key definitions in the law, including those related to the rules for  how companies can use defensive measures. According to Senate aides who spoke with CyberScoop, these changes could leave small- and medium-sized businesses particularly vulnerable. Combined with the other industry objections, the aides said, Paul’s bill would have functionally ended private sector information sharing with the government.

Industry is wary of major changes to CISA 2015 in general.

“The fact is that over the last 10 years, it’s been an effective way for the private sector to share information, which is a key ingredient in improving cybersecurity, and we should just be very careful while making changes to something that is working pretty well,” said Henry Young, senior director of policy for Business Software Alliance.

A section of the legislation that Paul wrote on free speech protections also created questions.  Five Senate and industry sources told CyberScoop that Paul canceled the markup because Senate Republican panel members planned amendments that would have, with somewhat different approaches, stripped Paul’s changes in favor of a “clean” reauthorization. 

Spokespeople for senators that sources said were behind those amendments, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Paul disputed what the sources told CyberScoop about the reason for the cancellation.

“The characterization of the cancellation of the markup is false,” said the spokesperson, Gabrielle Lipsky. “The Democrats, who are not negotiating in good faith, asked for more time.”

Peters said in a Senate floor speech Friday that it was “disappointing” that Paul canceled the markup, and that “we were blocked from even having a discussion about the policy or draft legislation.”

Constituents in Paul’s home state have lobbied him on the importance of a “clean” reauthorization of CISA 2015; Paul’s public remarks about extension of the law have largely focused on passing a bill that includes additional guarantees on free speech.

“We make this request respecting your determination to protect Americans’ privacy and freedom of speech from censorship and intimidation by federal government employees, and we share those concerns,” a number of Kentucky business groups wrote to Paul in a Sept. 17 letter advocating for a “clean” extension. “We would welcome the opportunity to work with you to increase privacy and censorship protections in other legislation.” 

Peters asked for unanimous consent Friday for the Senate to advance a 10-year reauthorization. Paul said only, “I object,” thus blocking the renewal effort from Peters.

“Congress must pass an extension of these cybersecurity protections and prevent a lapse that would completely undercut our cybersecurity defenses and expose critical sectors to preventable attacks,” Peters said in a statement to CyberScoop. “These liability protections ensure trusted, rapid information sharing between the private sector and government to quickly detect, prevent, and respond to cybersecurity threats. I’m continuing to work toward a bipartisan, bicameral deal that will renew these protections for the long-term, but we cannot afford to let these critical cybersecurity protections expire at the end of the month.”

Other avenues

A common hope among advocates was that after a short-term extension became law as part of the CR, a longer-term extension would be included in the NDAA, which often passes toward the end of each calendar year or the start of the next.

But hopes for that diminished after actions in both the House and Senate. In the Senate, the Intelligence Committee had included a 10-year renewal in its annual intelligence authorization bill. That legislation was then included in the Senate version of the NDAA, but sources on and off the Hill told CyberScoop that Paul objected to inclusion of the CISA 2015 extension, so it was removed.

And the Rules Committee decided on Sept. 9 that Garbarino’s CISA 2015 renewal amendment wasn’t germane, thus preventing him from offering it during debate on the House floor about the NDAA. One day later, the House passed its version of the NDAA, 231-196.

The next steps for CISA 2015 reauthorization are unclear. Paul’s office did not respond to a question about his future plans for renewing CISA 2015.

Options for a short-term renewal are limited for now to whatever congressional leaders do to try to revive or replace a CR, but the timeline for doing so before CISA 2015 expires is exceptionally tight. Options for a long-term renewal might include an amendments package for the Senate version of the NDAA, since the full Senate has yet to take up its bill.

CISA 2015 “must not lapse on September 30, 2025. Allowing it to expire will create a significantly more hostile security environment for the U.S.,” Matthew Eggers, vice president of cybersecurity policy in the cyber, intelligence, and security division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told CyberScoop in a written statement. “The Chamber advocates for a multi-year reauthorization of this vital law. Short-term extensions are counterproductive. Both the private sector and the government need certainty, including the ability to allocate resources for long-term cybersecurity planning and implementation. House and Senate leaders and the Trump administration have expressed strong support for reauthorizing CISA 2015.”

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Expiration of a 2015 law at the end of September could dramatically reduce cyber threat information sharing within industry, as well as between companies and the federal government, almost to the point of eliminating it, some experts and industry officials warn.

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, also known as CISA 2015, is due to end next month unless Congress extends it. Leaders of both of the House and Senate panels with the responsibility for reauthorizing it say they intend to act on legislation next month, but the law still stands to expire soon without a quick bicameral deal.

The original 2015 law provided legal safeguards for organizations to share threat data with other organizations and the federal government.

“We can expect, roughly, potentially, if this expires, maybe an 80 to 90% reduction in cyber threat information flows, like raw flows,” Emily Park, a Democratic staffer on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said at an event last month. “But that doesn’t say anything about the break in trust that will occur as well, because at its core, CISA 2015, as an authority, is about trust, and being able to trust the businesses and organizations around you, and being able to trust the federal government that it will use the information you share with it.”

That estimate — 80 to 90% — is on the high side of warnings issued by policymakers and others, and some reject the notion that the sky is catastrophically falling should it lapse. Additionally, some of the organizations warning about the fallout from the law’s lapse benefit from its provisions. But there’s near-unanimity that expiration of the law could largely shift decisions about cyber threat info sharing from organizations’ chief information security officers to the legal department.

“If you think about it from the company’s perspective, what a lapse would do would be to cause the ability to share information — to move the decision from the CISO to the general counsel’s office,”  said Amy Shuart, vice president of technology and innovation at Business Roundtable, which considered the issue important enough to fly in CISOs from member companies to meet with lawmakers this summer and persuade them to act. “And any good general counsel is going to say, ‘I used to have authority here that protects us from antitrust. We don’t have it anymore. Now I’ve got concerns.’ So we do anticipate that if this was to lapse, the vast majority of private sector information sharing would shut down just due to legal risk.”

A common expectation among watchers is that Congress is likely to pass a short-term extension that would be attached to an annual spending bill known as a continuing resolution before the end of the current fiscal year, which also is tied to the end of September. But that still gives lawmakers a short window, and even if a short-term extension passes, Hill appropriators are likely to be impatient about a long-term extension and unwilling to aid any extension past the end of December.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., said last month that he intends to hold a markup of CISA 2015 extension legislation in September. A critic of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency over allegations that it pushed social media outlets to censor election security and COVID-19 data — allegations that then-CISA leaders denied — Paul said he wants to include language in any extension prohibiting the agency known as CISA from censorship.

The new leader of the House Homeland Security Committee, Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., also has said reauthorization is a priority, but wants to make other changes to the law as well.

“Reauthorizing the Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act is essential as the deadline nears and as threats evolve,” Garbarino said in a statement to CyberScoop. “The House Committee on Homeland Security plans to mark up our legislative text for its reauthorization shortly after Congress returns from recess in September. In a 10-year extension, I will preserve the privacy protections in the law, and I aim to provide enhanced clarity to certain pre-existing provisions to better address the evolving threat landscape.”

Separate from the 2015 law, the Justice and Homeland Security departments have issued and updated legal guidance pertaining to cyber threat information sharing that sector-specific information sharing and analysis centers say undergird exchanges from company to company.

But a Supreme Court decision last year about federal regulatory authority could cast a shadow over that guidance should CISA 2015 expire, warned Michael Daniel, leader of the Cyber Threat Alliance. Furthermore, a failure from Congress to act could send a message to courts.

“A lack of congressional action to positively reauthorize private entities to monitor their networks, deploy defensive measures, and share information ‘notwithstanding any other provision of law’ introduces uncertainty about sharing information that could trigger certain criminal laws, such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or the Stored Communications Act, or could violate antitrust laws when participating in collective cyber defense,” he recently wrote. “In short, the resulting uncertainty would reduce the amount of sharing that occurs, reintroduce friction into the system, and inhibit the ability to identify, detect, track, prepare for, or respond to cyber threats.”

Daniel told CyberScoop some of those discussions about expiration fallout are hypothetical at this point, but legal experts have told him they are realistic. 

Trump administration officials and nominees have said they support reauthorization of the 2015 law. There are links to its recent artificial intelligence action plan, which calls for establishment of an AI-ISAC.

“One of the things that we’ve heard the administration say loud and clear about their approach with the [AI] action plan is that they were thinking about what they could do within their existing authorities,” Shuart said. “CISA 2015 is an important existing authority for the action plan to be successful.”

Still, the future of the 2015 law is uncertain.

‘There’s a lot of people kind of searching around for how to do this. I really couldn’t say I know that there’s a consensus,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance. “I know that there are people working in multiple different committees — Homeland Security, Armed Services, Appropriations, Intel — who are trying to figure out how to do this. And that’s a good thing, because we want all that support. It’s also a troubling thing because we wind up with too many cooks in the kitchen, and it’s harder to get things done without a consensus on the specifics of what needs to be done, given the tight timeline.”

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