Congress poised to agree on bill to allow companies to share cyber threats with government

House intelligence committee leaders have unveiled a bipartisan cybersecurity bill amid signs of broad agreement on long-sought legislation that will allow private companies to share with the government details of how they are hacked, without fear of being sued.

The information sharing is badly needed, backers say, so that government agencies can help the private sector defend itself against sophisticated cyberattacks, many of which are undertaken by intelligence agencies in countries such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

The House bill would grant companies liability protection if they stripped out personal information from the data and shared it in real time through a civilian portal, most likely run by the Department of Homeland Security.