In keeping with the Obama administration’s focus on boosting the nation’s defenses against cyber attacks, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is asking Congress for a nearly 12 percent increase in its budget devoted to cyber security for FY ’14.
The National Protection and Programs Directorate would receive $810.4 million for its cyber security efforts if Congress approves the request, with the bulk of the increase for the federal civilian network defense program known as EINSTEIN. The budget request is seeking $406.4 million under the Network Security Deployment heading, versus $328 million a year ago, with the increase aimed at accelerating the EINSTEIN 3A (E3A) intrusion prevention capability to be fully operational in FY ’15.
In addition to preventing network intrusions, as opposed to just detecting them like current versions of EINSTEIN do, the third phase of the program would also provide automated alerts about detected intrusions.
In line with the E3A deployment, the budget request also seeks more funding for the operations element of NPPD that coordinates efforts to improve cyber defense and analyzes and mitigates cyber threats. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team would get a nearly $23 million plus-up to $102.6 million to keep pace with the E3A deployment and boost efforts at defending federal networks.
DHS is also seeking additional research and development funds for cyber security in FY ’14, $70.1 million versus $46.4 million in FY ’12. These activities are managed by the Science and Technology Directorate and include projects to increase the number of forensics tools, boost the transition of solutions into commercial products, find incentives to adopt cyber security measures and deter hacking and cyber crime, identity authentication, added privacy and more.