Democratic lawmakers plan to advance key federal cybersecurity measures when they regain control of Congress in January, from legislation aimed at encouraging companies to share attack intelligence to rebuilding the government's embattled cyber agency.
Above all, they say, setting guardrails for runaway artificial intelligence is job No. 1.
"AI tools will accelerate the speed and scale with which bad actors can disrupt our lives and our national security," said Sen. Mark Warner. "That is why cyber will remain a priority for me as we enter the new Congress," said the Virginia Democrat, who is expected to chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees cybersecurity issues.
But stopping AI-powered hackers -- the leading source of this year's string of far-reaching cyberattacks -- will require a broader approach than simply forcing through tough AI regulations, security experts say. Along with an uphill climb to regain private-sector trust in federal cyber support, House and Senate Democrats face a standoff over the Trump administration's entrenched cost-cutting and tech industry-friendly policies.
Some key issues will benefit from bipartisan support. They include reauthorizing the lapsed attack-intelligence sharing act and extending state and local cyber grants. "These authorities are too important to leave in limbo, and I'm committed to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to get both across the finish line," said New York Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino, departing chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Other issues are unlikely to come without a fight.
"The 120th Congress will see new leaders tackling a full cybersecurity agenda," said Neal Higgins, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, and a former cybersecurity leader at the Central Intelligence Agency who later served as the White House's first deputy national cyber director for national cybersecurity.
Rebuilding CISA
Staffing at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a linchpin in coordinating federal defenses with private-sector infrastructure operators and other critical services, has shrunk by roughly a third of previous levels through job cuts, layoffs and forced retirements led by the administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
That includes many sought-after cyber professionals who have since joined private firms or were picked up by state agencies.
"Democrats are taking the majority at a pivotal time for CISA," said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee who is likely to take over as chair in the coming session. "First and foremost, we will aim to work with CISA to expedite its critical restaffing effort," Thompson said.
That includes using spending bills to prop up the agency's budget, which the White House last year cut by $300 million, to $2.6 billion from $2.9 billion and is seeking even deeper cuts in the year ahead. Though advances in AI can help defenders, Thompson said, "it will also accelerate the consequences of deferred investments in security and CISA must be well-positioned to help critical infrastructure owners and operators."
This week, President Trump nominated Michael LoSapio, tech firm Palantir Technologies' chief information security officer, as the agency's director. If confirmed, LoSapio would be CISA's first permanent leader since former director Jen Easterly left in January 2025.
Intelligence sharing
Issuing up-to-the-minute attack data is one of the best lines of defense against cyber adversaries, security experts say. But threat-and-response sharing is a two-way street, they say, relying heavily on engagement by private-sector firms, and state and local governments.
That collaborative approach has eroded over the past two years, after the White House shifted many cyber-related responsibilities to state governments. Last year, the administration stopped funding the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, known as MS-ISAC, which acted as a threat-intelligence and monitoring resource between the federal government and state cyber agencies.
At the same time, the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which provides antitrust and liability protections for companies sharing threat intelligence with federal agencies, lapsed in October 2025 and has since operated through temporary stopgap measures.
Warner said it is "critically important" to revive both MS-ISAC and intel-sharing protections.
Other keystone measures will include extending the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, which provides federal funds for public-sector organizations to manage and respond to cyber threats. The program was also allowed to lapse in 2025 and has since faced legislative uncertainty. Thompson said renewing the program will "prioritize getting resources straight into the hands for defenders."
Reining in AI
Even as the number and scale of AI-enabled cyberattacks grows -- sparking a global rush to deal with a wave of hacks last month dubbed "Black October" -- the long-divided Congress has yet to establish a set of nationwide AI-security laws.
"The number one cybersecurity priority for the new Congress must be regulating frontier AI," said Jake Williams, a faculty member at IANS, a cyber risk consulting firm. "A multistate patchwork of regulation isn't working for privacy and it won't work for AI regulation either," Williams said.
Lawmakers have a head start with the Frontier Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in July by Reps. Jay Obernolte (R., Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D., Mass.), which seeks to establish a nationwide framework overseeing the development and deployment of advanced AI models.
Until then, these and other roadblocks threaten to slow response times and leave risky openings for supercharged AI hackers, said Daniel Shechter, co-founder and chief executive at cybersecurity firm Miggo Security.
"Washington still measures security by time to patch, and that metric no longer fits the threat," said Shechter, a former commander in Israel's Unit 8200, a military cyber unit.