American-led innovation has built a digitally connected world that’s created enormous benefits for American families and businesses. For most American families, access to people and products from anywhere in the world comes as easily as reaching for the phone in our pocket.
Now, imagine if tomorrow that access we’ve become familiar and comfortable with became our biggest threat. Think of a world in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were able to launch a cyber-attack and target your power and water, block your bank accounts, or turn off your internet. That’s the reality America faces today and why we are fighting to protect American families and pass the Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act.
The CCP understands the vulnerability of weak cybersecurity infrastructure. Communist China is constantly prodding U.S. security, looking for a way to undermine the American economy and disrupt our lives with CCP-backed groups of hackers known as “Volt Typhoon” and “Salt Typhoon.”
The threats posed by CCP-back cyber-attacks are more real than many folks realize. In February 2024, U.S. government agencies revealed that Volt Typhoon had been burrowed into the IT environments of key critical infrastructure sectors like energy, water and wastewater systems, transportation systems, and communications for years.
If a hospital is locked out of its systems, life support could fail and patients would die.
An attack on our electrical grid could deny millions of families access to heat in the winter, lights would not turn on, and they wouldn’t be able to keep food in their refrigerator.
If the CCP attacked our financial institutions, hackers could empty your bank account or delete all digital records of stock and home ownership, destroying families’ financial health and retirements.
These are very real threats that every American faces if our cybersecurity infrastructure fails or is attacked. That’s why we need to be taking this seriously.
As a nation, we must embrace the opportunity that our leadership in a digitally connected world allows, while also refusing to accept the vulnerabilities posed by cyber-attacks from foreign adversaries wishing to destroy our way of life. We love our country, our ideals, and our children too much to gamble with any of them.
If we don’t beat China in cyberspace, any of the scenarios we mentioned earlier could come to pass. That’s why Congress must pass the Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act. This bill creates a joint task force led by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to detect, analyze, and respond to CCP-backed cyber threats like Volt Typhoon.
It also mandates that CISA issues annual reports to Congress detailing threat assessments and recommendations to counter these threats. It overwhelmingly passed the House last year.
Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for almost a third of a year to protect illegal aliens. CISA is a part of DHS. Leaving CISA unfunded with a skeleton crew and limited operations only left American families more vulnerable.
This is not a partisan game; it is literally a matter of the lights turning on when you hit the switch. It could mean the difference of life and death for a loved one in the hospital. We cannot allow Americans to be at the mercy of Chinese hackers.
Our bill makes Americans safer, it protects our way of life, and it strengthens our national security. The Senate must pass this bill and get it to President Trump’s desk so we can take proactive steps to enhance our cybersecurity, not wait until catastrophe strikes and it’s too late.
Rick Scott is the senior U.S. Senator from Florida. Andy Ogles represents Tennessee’s 5th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.