New legislation introduced by Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and John Cornyn, R-Texas would codify into Federal law the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, and provide for a pilot program for state and local governments to deploy the cybersecurity technologies that the CDM program offers.

The cybersecurity threats that have prompted wide-scale action to improve security across the Federal government are posing equal dangers to state and local governments, and officials said at FCW’s CDM Summit virtual event on November 4 that the same solutions being put into place by the Feds also are scalable and adaptable by state and local governments.

In Washington D.C.’s cybersecurity community (and the entirety of Federal IT), the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program is well known and evolving – a bold and necessary effort to centralize the management of cybersecurity tools, services, and reporting across the entire Federal civilian enterprise. Just four hours down Interstate 95, where CDM is not so well known, the government of North Carolina is making a strong case for state-level adoption of the CDM model to create greater network visibility and strengthen cybersecurity across the state system.