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The White House is urging Congress to pass President Obama's cybersecurity legislation in 2012 to give officials the authority they need to combat "growing and increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats," according to the leading U.S. cybersecurity official.

White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt called for legislators to "modernize" outdated laws surrounding cybersecurity by supporting the broad legislative proposal President Obama sent to Congress in May, according to a White House blog post.

"It is our sincere hope that members of Congress will look at the significant amount of public debate that has been occurring on these issues--as well as the work and debate on this issue over the years in the Congress--and continue to work in a bipartisan manner to quickly enact legislation to address the full range of cyber threats facing our nation," Schmidt said.

[ The feds are trying to better understand what is happening in cyberspace. Read FBI Seeks Data-Mining App for Social Media. ]

Indeed, Congress has dragged its feet for years on passing cybersecurity legislation despite the fact that there are numerous bills circulating, some of which call for the same regulations as the White House plan. Congressional leaders had expressed an interest in passing cybersecurity legislation by the end of last year but it did not happen.

Schmidt's urging came a day after President Obama's annual State of the Union address, in which the president mentioned the proposal as a way "to stay one step ahead of our adversaries" by securing cyberspace.

Laws authorizing collaboration with the private sector--which the feds already are engaged in--are a key part of the proposal and should be addressed in whatever Congress passes, Schmidt said.

"Legislation that fails to provide the legislative authorities our professionals need to work with the private sector to ensure the safe and reliable operation of our critical infrastructure networks would not be commensurate with the very real and urgent risks to our nation," he said.

Other aspects of the plan place cybersecurity authority more squarely in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)--which already has a key role in leading federal cybersecurity efforts--and address data breaches and privacy protections.

Specifically, Obama's legislative proposal clarifies how companies can share information about cyberthreats with the DHS, and allows the agency to help critical infrastructure companies with their cybersecurity needs if the private sector wants assistance.

The DHS also would be responsible for defining risks that controllers of the most critical infrastructure need to mitigate and require them to provide their plans for doing so to the agency.

In terms of data breaches, Obama's legislation includes a national standard for reporting breaches to replace 47 existing state data-breach reporting laws. It also would toughen up minimum punishments for cyber criminals.

The DHS also factors into the privacy-protections built into the White House plan. The department would be required to develop privacy and civil liberties procedures that the Attorney General would oversee and approve, and companies that want to share information with the government would first have to wipe it of any identifying information unrelated to cyber threats.

There has been some opposition to the White House cybersecurity plan. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, worried that placing cybersecurity requirements on critical infrastructure companies would place an undo regulatory and financial burden on them, among other concerns.

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