House advances cloud security legislation

The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed the FedRAMP Authorization Act, according to Bloomberg Government. Sponsored by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the legislation would formally grant authorization to the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, whose task would be to oversee all risk management and monitoring activities for government cloud services. However, the bills prospects of passing in the Senate is slim. A separate bill under negotiation among House and Senate members seeks to update the Federal Information Security Management Act, according to a spokesperson for House Oversight and Reform Committee Democrats, and two sources with knowledge of the discussions stated that Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, is committed to attaching the FedRAMP authorization bill to this one. A House staffer said lawmakers next move should the authorization bill fail in the Senate is to call for it to be attached to this years National Defense Authorization Act. The House and Senate recently passed bills that would update FISMA with new requirements for federal agencies to conduct persistent federal cybersecurity risk assessments and to report data breaches in specific circumstances.