Congress, urged on by the nation’s top law enforcement agencies, is pushing to require companies to report ransomware attacks in an effort to help the government understand the scope of the threat.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, representatives of the Justice Department, FBI, Secret Service and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency all said Congress should consider passing a bill forcing companies that have been hit by a cyberattack to tell the government.
“The government and Congress does not have a full picture of the threat facing companies. Congress should enact legislation to require victims to report,” Richard Downing, a deputy assistant attorney general at Justice, said during the hearing.