The was introduced late Thursday by Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and three Democrats. The bill addresses , sponsored by four of the five same senators, including concerns from civil liberties groups that the old version would allow businesses to share a wide range of information about cyberthreats with several federal agencies.

narrows the definition of what information can be shared, and allows the information to be shared mainly with civilian agencies, and not with military or intelligence agencies, said the Center for Democracy and Technology, a critic of the older bill. In addition, the new bill would limit the shared information to be used only for cybersecurity, for protecting serious threats to children, or to protect people against imminent threat of death or serious injury and not for other investigative purposes, CDT said.

The bill could come to the Senate floor as early as late July.

"Our critical infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats, and can be manipulated or attacked by faceless individuals using computers halfway around the globe," the bill's sponsors said in a joint statement. "The destruction or exploitation of critical infrastructure through a cyber attack, whether a nuclear power plant, a region's water supply, or a major financial market, could cripple our economy, our national security, and the American way of life. We must act now."

The changes in the new bill make it more protective of privacy than from several Republicans, including Senator John McCain, and than the , or CISPA, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in April, said Leslie Harris, CDT's president and CEO.