LITTLE ROCK -- A House committee advanced a pair of bills to enhance cybersecurity for state and local government agencies.
House Bill 1555 comes in response to ransomware attacks across the state, and it would allow lawmakers to go into closed session to discuss a breach. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, is aimed at "not letting the bad guys know what we're doing."
The committee passed the bills unanimously through a voice vote, sending them to the House floor for further consideration.
The bill states that the joint House and Senate Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology can meet in private "to review a cybersecurity incident involving, or a cyberattack on, a public entity." The bill also exempts the committee's private sessions from Freedom of Information Act requests.
A computer technician and chair of the House panel, Meeks said the joint committee needed to be able to meet in private to prevent "bad guys" from knowing where government agencies may be vulnerable to further attacks.
"What we want to be able to do is allow this committee to meet in private to hear the details of those attacks so that we have proper government oversight," Meeks said.
Recently, numerous public bodies and agencies have been hit by cyber attacks. In December, the Little Rock School Board signed off on paying a $250,000 ransom to hackers who broke into its internal data networks. The School District also has sought an attorney general's opinion on whether it can meet in private to discuss cyber attacks.
The House Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology also approved House Bill 1369, sponsored by Meeks. The bill requires government agencies to submit a cybersecurity policy to the state. Meeks said the bill would set a minimum standard for cybersecurity.
"Our hope is to create a cyber standard that will be used across the state," Meeks said. "And instead of everybody kind of doing their own things, we want to make sure we have one cohesive minimum standard that's being used across the state."
The bill also would require government entities to set a greater technology use policy to prevent government employees from expressing a personal political opinion to an elected official while on duty.