TINLEY PARK- Illinois state agencies will now be required to report all cybersecurity attacks within five days.

Senate Bill 707, sponsored by State Senator Michael E. Hastings (Tinley Park) was signed into law today.

The new law requires state agencies to release detailed reports within five days of determining there was a security breach concerning any of their networks and databases especially those that compromise Illinois residents’ information.

“The people of Illinois deserve to know if a security breach has taken place at a taxpayer funded agencies,” Hastings said. “Illinois residents deserve to not only be informed of all cybersecurity breaches but be reassured the proper steps were taken to make sure similar attacks will not happen again.”

Hastings started looking into this issue after the July 2016 attack on the Illinois State Board of Elections.

In July 2016, an employee of the Illinois Board of Elections flagged irregular activity, which found that hackers had gained access to the state’s voter databases, which contained personal information such as names, dates of birth, genders, driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers of about 15 million people. Ultimately, as many as 90,000 records were compromised.  

“We live in a digital world. It’s important that Illinois’ laws evolve and update with the way government works,” Hastings said.

Senate Bill 707 requires all security breaches that affect more than 250 Illinois residents, and then the breach should be reported to the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer of DoIT no later than 72 hours after the alleged breach. The Chief Information Security Officer will assess the report; if releasing the report would jeopardize the security of Illinois resident or the ongoing investigation that determination will be made.

“Illinois needs to work to strengthen their cyber security systems,” Hastings said. “It’s important to use previous attacks as a learning experience to better strengthen our system and fend off attackers.”

Senate Bill 707 passed the Senate and House with bipartisan support and goes into effect today.