April 5, 2022. After passage by the Senate in December, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Better Cybercrime Metrics Act in a 377-48 vote last week. As the latest version of the bill states, “The United States lacks comprehensive cybercrime data and monitoring, leaving the country less prepared to combat cybercrime that threatens national and economic security.” The bill seeks to empower agencies to develop taxonomies to categorize cybercrime, include appropriately-categorized cybercrime in federal departments’ and agencies’ crime reporting, and then analyze cybercrime reporting disparities vis-à-vis other types of crime.
As previously reported on this blog, one of the key ways companies and individuals doing business with the government may commit fraud includes “knowingly violating obligations to monitor and report cybersecurity incidents and breaches.”
This bill would increase agencies and contractors’ obligations to report cybersecurity breaches in a timely manner. Would-be whistleblowers, take note. Whistleblowers can hold accountable government contractors that fail to report cybersecurity breaches timely to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, through what is called a qui tam lawsuit. Whistleblowers can receive 15-25% of the government’s recovery of false claims in a successful qui tam lawsuit.
If you would like to report cyber-fraud, you can contact attorneys at Tycko & Zavareei LLP. Eva Gunasekera and Renée Brooker are former officials of the United States Department of Justice and prosecuted whistleblower cases under the False Claims Act. Renée served as Assistant Director at the United States Department of Justice, the office that supervises False Claims Act cases in all 94 United States District Courts. Eva was the Senior Counsel for Health Care Fraud. Eva and Renée now represent whistleblowers. For a free consultation, you can contact Renée at [email protected] (tel.: 202-417-3664) or contact Eva Gunasekera at [email protected]. You can also go to Tycko & Zavareei LLP’s website for whistleblowers to learn more at https://www.fraudfighters.net/.