By Franz-Stefan Gady
A new office shows the central role that cybersecurity plays in the White House’s national security calculus.
This week, the White House announced that it will create a new office integrating data on cyber threats from various intelligence organizations (CIA, NSA etc.) and distributing this information to other federal agencies. This new Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center will be part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is in charge of coordinating intelligence across the U.S. federal government.
The new agency, modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center, is supposed to employ 50 people and will have an annual budget of $35 million. The fiscal year 2016 budget request by President Barack Obama asked for $16 billion in overall expenditure for cybersecurity; the Pentagon spends around $5 billion on cyber defense and its cyber arsenal per year.
“The threat is becoming more diverse, more sophisticated and more dangerous, and I worry that malicious attacks… will increasingly become the norm unless we adapt quickly and take a comprehensive approach,” stated Lisa Monaco, the White House’s senior advisor for counterterrorism and homeland security, in a speech this Tuesday outlining the rationale behind the creation of a the new office.
Read the full story at The Diplomat