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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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency is delaying finalization of a rule until May of next year that will require critical infrastructure owners and operators to swiftly report major cyber incidents to the federal government, according to a recent regulatory notice.

Under the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) of 2022, CISA was supposed to produce a final rule enacting the law by October of this year. But last week, the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs published an update that moved the final rule’s arrival to May 2026.

A CISA official told CyberScoop that the move would give the agency time to consider streamlining and reducing the burden on industry of a previously proposed version of the rule, citing public comments in response to that version, as well as harmonizing the law with other agencies’ cyber regulations.

“We received a significant number of public comments on the proposed rule, many of which emphasized the need to reduce the scope and burden, improve harmonization of CIRCIA with other federal cyber incident reporting requirements, and ensure clarity,” said Marci McCarthy, director of public affairs at CISA. “Stakeholder input is extremely important as we work to draft a rule that improves our collective security. CISA remains committed to implementing CIRCIA to maximize impact while minimizing unnecessary burden to entities in critical infrastructure sectors.”

McCarthy said CISA would take the time prior to May to “examine options within the rulemaking process to address Congressional intent and streamline CIRCIA’s requirements.”

A top lawmaker and leading industry group also told CyberScoop the delay could help make those kinds of changes.

House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., said the Trump administration assured him that it would prioritize soliciting additional feedback from groups that would be affected by the regulations.

“I support the administration’s decision to extend the deadline for CIRCIA’s final rule as long as this additional time is used to properly capture private-sector feedback on the proposed rule’s reporting requirements and ensure the final rule fulfills congressional intent for the law,” he said. “I share the concern of many industry stakeholders that CIRCIA should not place duplicative or overly broad requirements on critical infrastructure owners and operators. Doing so could unnecessarily burden America’s cyber professionals as they work to defend our networks from heightened threats.”

The 2022 law will require critical infrastructure owners and operators to report to CISA within 72 hours if they suffer a major cyberattack, and to report within 24 hours if they pay a ransomware demand. It was inspired by a spate of major cyberattacks, such as the 2021 Colonial Pipeline hack.

But CISA’s proposed rule — and how it interpreted the scope of whom the law would apply to or what kind of incidents would constitute reporting to CISA — had drawn industry criticism from groups that wanted a narrower reading of the definitions of the law’s key terms and phrases.

The Information Technology Industry Council, which had co-signed letters about the proposed regulation, said the delay gives CISA a chance to adopt industry input.

“Enhancing operational efficiency through improved visibility into significant cyber incidents remains a top priority for the tech industry,” said Leopold Wildenauer, director of cybersecurity policy for the group. “CIRCIA will have a significant impact on the U.S. cyber landscape, so it’s critical to get it right. CISA should use this extended timeline to meaningfully incorporate industry input and realign the rule with Congress’s original intent. At the same time, efforts to streamline incident reporting and harmonize requirements across the federal government must move forward to drive better security outcomes.”

Bloomberg Law had earlier reported the planned delay, based on a notice that disappeared from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website for weeks afterward.

Personnel cutbacks at CISA and other developments had long prompted concerns that the agency would not meet the October CIRCIA deadline. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in May she would support re-opening industry consultation on the proposed regulation.

The top Democrat on Garbarino’s panel, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said the Trump administration appears to have done little to meet the deadline, among other criticisms. He told CyberScoop in an emailed statement that he first learned about the rulemaking time shift last week.

“I’m disappointed that CISA has failed to keep its authorizers — and one of the authors of the CIRCIA — updated of its lack of progress in issuing a final rule,” he said. “I am also disappointed that CISA has yet to initiate an ex parte process to gather additional input to inform the final rule. All evidence suggests the administration burned seven months doing nothing while it could have been engaging with stakeholders and working toward a final rule. Full implementation of CIRCIA will enhance our collective ability to detect and disrupt cyber threats and, if done right, drive harmonization of cyber incident reporting rules.”

The former CISA official who ran the CIRCIA program, Lauren Boas Hayes, wrote in an op-ed for CyberScoop in July that it was always going to be difficult for CISA to meet the October deadline without a confirmed director. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has since approved the nomination of Sean Plankey, but the full Senate has yet to vote to confirm him.

“I am happy to see that they are acknowledging that and moving the deadline to a reasonable timeframe so that they can make those policy decisions, give the program clear prioritization and direction, and continue to move towards a CIRCIA final rule that will have positive impacts for the nation and and for our national security,” Boas Hayes told CyberScoop in response to the shifted deadline. “I hope that the acting director of CISA is providing that clear guidance and prioritization to the staff so that they can continue to make progress now and when the CISA director joins the agency and is on-boarded fully and ready to make all those policy decisions.” 

The notice about the delay clears up uncertainty about CISA’s plans, said Caleb Skeath, a partner at the Covington law firm.

“It helps provide some clarity on what the next steps are. We did have a statutory deadline for having these rules published, but there had not been a lot of information coming out of CISA for a pretty long period of time since the comment period,” he said. “And it’s a very broad, wide-ranging rule that’s going to impact a lot of entities across a lot of industry sectors, and is going to require very quick reporting of a lot of information about cybersecurity incidents.”

There are limits to the kinds of changes the Trump administration could make to the proposed regulation without going to Congress for additional leeway, Skeath said. And it’s possible that it could take extra time beyond publication of a final rule in May for the regulation to go into effect, he said.

Updated 9/8/25: This story was updated to include comments from Thompson and Boas Hayes.

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A House panel advanced legislation Wednesday that would reauthorize a major cyber threat information sharing law and a big-dollar state and local cyber grant program before they’re set to expire at the end of this month.

Trump administration officials and nominees, as well as cybersecurity organizations and experts, have voiced support for renewing them both as they near their respective lapses. Expiration of the information sharing law in particular has led industry groups and others to warn about dangerous ramifications about the collapse of cyber threat data exchanges.

At the House Homeland Security Committee markup, the panel also approved bills addressing pipeline cybersecurity and terrorists’ use of generative artificial intelligence.

The 2015 Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act has provided legal protections to the private sector to share threat data with the federal government and between companies and organizations. The Widespread Information Management for the Welfare of Infrastructure and Government Act, which the panel approved 25-0, would reauthorize it for another 10 years, with updates.

“Reauthorizing this law and ensuring the relevance of this framework before it expires is essential for retaining our cyber resilience,” said Rep. Andrew Garbarino, N.Y., the chair of the committee and lead sponsor of the re-up legislation. The original legislation, he said, “changed the cybersecurity landscape forever, and for the better.”

The bill encourages the use of secure AI to improve technical capabilities, updates legal definitions to capture newer hacking tactics and seeks to preserve and strengthen existing privacy protections, he said.

The top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said the committee should have approved a simpler reauthorization to give lawmakers and affected parties more time to take a look at the legislation’s changes to the 2015 law, but he supported moving the bill forward.

Garbarino said he had a good conversation Tuesday evening with his Senate counterpart, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., about the path forward on the legislation.

Paul and other GOP lawmakers have said they want renewal of the 2015 law to include language prohibiting the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — which plays a large role in carrying out the law — from censoring speech, despite past responses from agency officials that they have not censored anyone. Garbarino’s bill doesn’t contain any provisions about that.

The panel voted 22-1 to approve the Protecting Information by Local Leaders for Agency Resilience Act, which would extend the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program for another 10 years. The program has doled out $1 billion.

“Many local governments have a long way to go to be prepared for cyberattacks from adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn. He said that while “I usually want Washington to do less,” the federal government might have to foot the bill later anyway if it doesn’t help state and local governments shore up their defenses.

It would provide 60% of funds to state, local and tribal governments that are eligible, or 70% for those applying together. It would direct a federal outreach effort to smaller communities, and stress defense for both information technology and operational technology, Ogles said. Appropriators would still need to dedicate funding to the program, even if President Donald Trump signs it into law.

A coalition of tech and cybersecurity groups wrote to congressional leaders Tuesday urging them to extend the program, listing examples of how the grant program has defended against specific cyberattacks across the nation. “Without continued funding, hard-won progress will stall, and communities across the country will be left vulnerable — handing our adversaries a dangerous advantage,” their letter reads.

Paul hasn’t publicly indicated his plans for the expiring grant program. The two bills would provide new names for the things they are authorizing: WIMWIG replacing 2015 CISA, and PILLAR replacing the grant program.

The House Homeland Security Committee also voted 21-0 to advance the Generative AI Terrorism Risk Assessment Act, which would require the Department of Homeland Security to conduct annual assessments on how terrorist groups use artificial intelligence to carry out terrorist activity, such as seeking to radicalize potential recruits.

“Known terrorist organizations like ISIS or Al Qaeda or others have gone so far as to have AI workshops to train members on its use,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas.

And the committee voted 22-0 to approve the Pipeline Security Act that would codify the Transportation Security Administration’s pipeline security office into law and specify its responsibilities, including on cybersecurity. TSA wrote cybersecurity regulations in response to the 2021 Colonial Pipeline hack.

“We don’t just risk our national security, we risk supply chain disruptions that will create a ripple effect throughout our communities” if we fail to protect our pipelines, said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas.

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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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Congress is set to revisit Stuxnet — the malware that wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear program 15 years ago  — next week in the hopes that the pioneering attack can guide today’s critical infrastructure policy debate, CyberScoop has learned.

The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection will hold a hearing July 22 to examine the operation that, according to independent reports, was carried out by the U.S. and Israeli governments and targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities in Natanz.

Witnesses listed for the hearing are Tatyana Bolton, executive director of the Operational Technology Cybersecurity Coalition; Kim Zetter, cybersecurity journalist and author of “Countdown to Zero Day”; Dragos CEO Robert Lee; and Nate Gleason, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory program leader, according to a copy of the notice.

Stuxnet malware included a rootkit for programmable logic controllers and was built specifically to target industrial systems. Deployed at the Natanz facility before 2010, it was engineered to covertly manipulate the speed of the rotors used to spin nuclear centrifuges, causing them to accelerate and slow unpredictably. The Institute for Science and International Security estimated in 2010 that the worm led to the damage and removal of more than 1,000 centrifuges, or approximately 10% of Iran’s total enrichment capacity at the time.

But the subcommittee led by Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., is interested in more than a history lesson.

“Stuxnet signaled a new age in the targeting of operational technology, an attack vector that has increased in complexity over the past 15 years,” Garbarino said in a statement to CyberScoop. “This moment showed how malware can be used to target and potentially cripple critical infrastructure operations, which has raised the stakes for critical infrastructure resilience for sectors across the globe.” 

Stuxnet also kicked off an era where many countries — and the United States in particular — have seen its domestic critical infrastructure come under threat from criminal and nation-state hacking groups.

“Today, bad actors will not hesitate to use malware to gain a foothold in the services Americans rely on every day and wreak havoc on our way of life,” Garbarino said. “Given increasing threats to critical infrastructure from actors such as Volt Typhoon, it is important to examine the legacy of Stuxnet – –the world’s first cyber weapon.”

In the 15 years since Stuxnet, U.S. critical infrastructure has itself been pilloried by cybercriminals, ransomware groups and nation-states alike. Policymakers are revisiting Stuxnet in the hopes that it can help them learn to better defend their own domestic industries.

A committee aide told CyberScoop that Stuxnet “is part of the story of OT cybersecurity.”

“It marked a pivotal moment in critical infrastructure resilience and the way we think about both offensive and defensive cyber operations,” the aide said. “Now that we are at the 15-year mark since the discovery of Stuxnet, it is timely to review how the cyber threat landscape has evolved to ensure our OT is resilient, especially as DHS warns about heightened threats from Iran against critical infrastructure.”

The hearing also comes weeks after the U.S dropped a total of 12 “massive ordnance penetrator” bombs on several Iranian nuclear facilities, including Natanz, during Operation Midnight Hammer.

The aide added that the lessons could be valuable to legislators with Congress set to tackle a pair of important cybersecurity laws that are set to expire this year.

“We still see gaps in understanding about the risks [in OT] – something we are striving to address through the reauthorizations of CISA 2015 and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program,” the aide said.

Bolton brings a wealth of cybersecurity experience in the federal government, Congress and the private sector. She has worked at Google and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, where she helped shepherd a broad slate of cybersecurity legislation through Congress.

Zetter’s book is widely considered the most comprehensive and definitive look at how U.S. and Israeli officials built and then covertly deployed the malware in an effort to damage and slow down Iran’s nuclear program.

Lee, a former NSA and Air Force cyber official, now leads one of the most well-known cybersecurity firms, specifically geared toward operational technology and critical infrastructure.

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