SIFMA Expresses Concern with Proposed Amendments to House Cybersecurity Legislation 

Washington, DC, April 22, 2015 – SIFMA today released the following statement from Andy Blocker, executive vice president, public policy and advocacy, as the U.S. House of Representatives moves to consider H.R. 1731 (the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015) and H.R. 1560 (the Protecting Cyber Networks Act): 

“Cyber attacks are increasingly a major threat to national security and the economy, and improving our nation’s collective ability to defend against these attacks is a top priority for the financial services industry. SIFMA and our member firms have long been strong advocates for Congressional action in this area and we applaud the House for recognizing the importance of public-private information sharing and bringing these issues up for debate today.

“While SIFMA strongly supports Congress moving expeditiously to improve the laws and processes surrounding cyber threat information sharing, we have serious concerns with any effort to sunset this new framework and therefore are strongly opposed to such amendments.  The threat posed by cyber attacks will not sunset nor should our framework for responding to the threat be set up to lapse and these amendments, if adopted, could hinder any benefits this legislation would provide.  We urge the House to preserve the integrity and merits of the underlying bills and defeat any effort to sunset this critically important proposal.”

-30-

SIFMA is the voice of the U.S. securities industry, representing the broker-dealers, banks and asset managers whose 889,000 employees provide access to the capital markets, raising over $2.4 trillion for businesses and municipalities in the U.S., serving clients with over $16 trillion in assets and managing more than $62 trillion in assets for individual and institutional clients including mutual funds and retirement plans. SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., is the U.S. regional member of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA). For more information, visit http://www.sifma.org.