Obama proposes USD 14 billion to boost cybersecurity

Washington, Feb 3: President Barack Obama has proposed USD 14 billion for the fiscal 2016 to boost cybersecurity across the US. Obama in his budget, sent to the US Congress yesterday, proposed to increase the cyber security budget by USD 1 billion to USD 14 billion, keeping in view the increased cyberattacks from countries like China and Russia and the recent hacking attack on Sony Pictures.

For the past several years, White House budgets have kept cyber spending around USD 13 billion. Cyber threats targeting the private sector, critical infrastructure, and the Federal Government demonstrate that no sector, network, or system is immune to while also protecting individual privacy.

The Budget identifies and promotes initiatives and priorities, including the deployment of intrusion detection and prevention capabilities and enhancement of Government information sharing capabilities with the private sector so that they can be more vigilant and better protect themselves against emerging threats, the proposals said.

It also makes investments in cyber research and development to strengthen US cybersecurity defenses and make cyberspace inherently more secure. In addition, the Budget includes funding to enhance US capabilities to respond to cyber threats and incidents once they have occurred, begin building a civilian cyber campus to better share information on cyber threats and incidents with those being targeted, improve the ability to share evidence of cyber-crimes with other nations, and maintain efforts to increase the Nation's cyber workforce, it said.

As cybersecurity challenges continue to impact Federal agencies, the protection of the Government's information and information systems has become critical to protecting national infrastructure, it said.

The Budget funds key investments to enhance the Federal Government's cybersecurity posture. These include Continuous Diagnostics and Monitoring of Federal systems, the EINSTEIN intrusion detection and prevention system, and Government-wide testing and incident response training to mitigate the impact of evolving cyber threats. These resources will allow the Government to more rapidly protect American citizens, systems, and information from cyber threats, the proposals said.

PTI