Intelligence Committee Adopts Collins Provision Requiring Damage Assessment Of Federal Cyber-Breaches, Including OPM

WASHINGTON, D.C.—To address the recent cyber-breach at the Office of Personnel Management and the troubling pattern of cyber-intrusions into government networks, U.S. Senator Collins, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, authored an important provision that was unanimously adopted by the Committee this afternoon as part of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016. The legislation will now be considered by the full Senate. This provision would require a comprehensive damage assessment on the series of dangerous cyber-intrusions into government networks that have occurred during the last year. This assessment will help to make sure that the Senate Intelligence Committee is fully briefed on the number of people affected by these breaches, the scope and type of information that was hacked, and the extent of the counterintelligence risk these intrusions pose.