TechAmerica, a tech company advocate and
supporter of cyber security legislation sponsored by House Intelligence
Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said Monday it was the target of its
own cyber attack; a denial-of-service attack it believes was led by Anonymous
due to that support, while the National Cable & Telecommunications
Association site was having trouble Monday as well.
"These
types of strong-arm tactics have no place in the critical discussions our
country needs to be having about our cybersecurity," said TechAmerica president
& CEO Shawn Osborne of that group's outage, "They just underscore the
importance of them.
A
representative of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association,
which also backs the bill -- the legislation was rolled out last fall at an
event hosted by NCTA -- told B&C/Multi
that it was investigating the problem but had not determined its root
cause.
The
bill, which is co-sponsored by Intelligence ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger
(D-Md.), allows, and encourages the government to share certain cyber threat
intelligence with private entities, like ISPs. That threat information is any
information in the intelligence community directly pertaining to the
vulnerability of a network, government or private to efforts to degrade,
disrupt or destroy the system or steal public or private information,
intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.
At
press time, neither TechAmerica's nor NCTA's site was accessible from B&C/Multi computers.
