Barack Obama's budget proposal for the 2016 fiscal year seeks $14 billion for cybersecurity efforts across the U.S. government to better protect federal and private networks from hacking threats.
The budget seeks an increase of about $1.5 billion from this year's $12.5 billion devoted to cybersecurity spending, reported Reuters.
The budget calls for deployment of more intrusion detection and prevention capabilities, greater sharing of data with the private sector and other countries and more funding to beef up the government's ability to respond to attacks, reportedReuters. The funding would support several specific programs, such as monitoring and diagnostics of federal computer networks, the EINSTEIN intrusion detection and prevention system and government-wide testing and incident-response training.
Among various requests, the White House sought $227 million for construction of a Civilian Cyber Campus, meant to spur public-private partnerships, and $160 million for information technology and cybersecurity of the weapons program at the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.
The Pentagon's budget alone called for $5.5 billion in funding for cybersecurity. The agency's chief weapons tester last month told Congress that nearly every U.S. weapons program showed "significant vulnerabilities" to cyberattacks, including misconfigured, unpatched and outdated software.
The White House budget for most agencies referenced their cybersecurity efforts, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Personnel Management. Obama also asked for at least $28 million for the Agriculture Department's Chief Information Officer to improve the agency's cybersecurity and $15 million for the FBI's grants, training and technical assistance program that helps local law enforcement fight economic, high-technology and Internet crimes.
The Electronic Transactions Association, which is a trade group that represents more than 500 payments and technology companies, said it supports Obama's cybersecurity legislative proposal and is also encouraging Congress to approve it, reported CNet.
"The president's legislative proposal will reduce the number and severity of cyberattacks by allowing the industry access to actionable information about cybercriminals' plans," association CEO Jason Oxman said in an emailed statement. "Increased information sharing about cyberthreats serves as an early warning system, thereby allowing the payments industry to further strengthen its defenses against specific cyberattacks."
