Official Summaries

American Cybersecurity Literacy Act

This bill requires the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to carry out a campaign to educate the public on cybersecurity best practices. The campaign must provide information on identifying cybersecurity risks and encourage the public to take certain actions, such as changing default passwords and declining unnecessary privilege requests from mobile applications.

Current Full Text

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2154 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2154

To establish a cybersecurity literacy campaign, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 14, 2025

Mr. Obernolte (for himself and Ms. McClellan) introduced the following 
    bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To establish a cybersecurity literacy campaign, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``American Cybersecurity Literacy 
Act''.

SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of the Congress that the United States has a 
national security and economic interest in promoting cybersecurity 
literacy amongst the general public.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF CYBERSECURITY LITERACY CAMPAIGN.

    (a) In General.--The Assistant Secretary shall develop and conduct 
a cybersecurity literacy campaign (which shall be available in multiple 
languages and formats, if practicable) to increase the knowledge and 
awareness of the American people of best practices to reduce 
cybersecurity risks.
    (b) Campaign Requirements.--In carrying out subsection (a), the 
Assistant Secretary shall--
            (1) educate the American people on how to prevent and 
        mitigate cyberattacks and cybersecurity risks, including by--
                    (A) instructing the American people on how to 
                identify--
                            (i) phishing emails and messages; and
                            (ii) secure websites;
                    (B) instructing the American people about the 
                benefits of changing default passwords on hardware and 
                software technology;
                    (C) encouraging the use of cybersecurity tools, 
                including--
                            (i) multi-factor authentication;
                            (ii) complex passwords;
                            (iii) anti-virus software;
                            (iv) patching and updating software and 
                        applications; and
                            (v) virtual private networks;
                    (D) identifying the devices that could pose 
                possible cybersecurity risks, including--
                            (i) personal computers;
                            (ii) smartphones;
                            (iii) tablets;
                            (iv) Wi-Fi routers;
                            (v) smart home appliances;
                            (vi) webcams;
                            (vii) internet-connected monitors; and
                            (viii) any other device that can be 
                        connected to the internet, including mobile 
                        devices other than smartphones and tablets;
                    (E) encouraging Americans to--
                            (i) regularly review mobile application 
                        permissions;
                            (ii) decline privilege requests from mobile 
                        applications that are unnecessary;
                            (iii) download applications only from 
                        trusted vendors or sources; and
                            (iv) consider a product's life cycle and 
                        the developer or manufacturer's commitment to 
                        providing security updates during a connected 
                        device's expected period of use; and
                    (F) identifying the potential cybersecurity risks 
                of using publicly available Wi-Fi networks and the 
                methods a user may utilize to limit such risks; and
            (2) encourage the American people to use resources to help 
        mitigate the cybersecurity risks identified in this subsection.
    (c) Assistant Secretary Defined.--In this section, the term 
``Assistant Secretary'' means the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for 
Communications and Information.
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