Cong. Zach Nunn. (file photo from Iowa PBS)
Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn is co-sponsoring federal legislation to address cyberattacks targeting schools.
“These are no longer attackers in basements or individuals who intend to do harm for a one time profit,” Nunn says. “These are now nation states, places like North Korea, the Islamic Republican Guard Corps out of Iran, Russian activists who are intentionally looking to steal information that can harm Americans for decades and generations.”
Nunn, a Republican from Bondurant, is joining with a California Democrat to sponsor a bill to create a national registry of ransomware attacks on schools. “Think of it as a 911 operations center,” Nunn says. “We can provide voluntary Rolodex of information coming in that can be categorized, so that the same type of attacks that occur in a place like Des Moines don’t get replicated in other communities.”
A cyberattack on Des Moines Public Schools in January led to two days of cancelled classes and exposed the personal data of some parents. Administrators say the district is still recovering from the breach. Nunn’s bill also calls for creation of a federal technology improvement program that would spend 20 million dollars over the next two years helping K-12 schools acquire new tools to protect data.
“We don’t want every school district, particularly some of our smaller school districts, to have to spend an inordinate amount of money trying to become what the Department of Homeland Security’s true job is — provide this level of integrity for a network,” Nunn says.
A similar bill in the Senate is co-sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats. Nunn, who was sworn in as Iowa’s third district congressman in January, has worked in military intelligence and cybersecurity as he served in the U.S. Air Force and Iowa Air National Guard. He’s currently a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve.