President Barack Obama has revealed the net fiscal year's budget for cybersecurity, and the administration is asking for as much as $19 billion to improve cybersecurity and overhaul IT systems for both the government and general public.
The $19 billion represents a 35 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, however, according to a statement, the president believes that cybersecurity is extremely important, and that the money is "within our grasp."
The White House specifically wanted to lay out a path to create a Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. According to the White House, this new commission will be made up of cybersecurity experts that are not currently part of the government, and will be aimed at offering recommendations on the best ways to improve cybersecurity for the public and government.
Part of the cybersecurity budget is $3.1 billion for the Information Technology Modernization Fund, which will be used to overhaul the IT systems being used by the government. Last but not least is a new position with the title of Federal Chief Information Security Officer, which will be created to oversee all the changes.
The news comes after a string of large hacks and cyber attacks, some of which were against the government. Perhaps the largest of this was the hack of the Office of Personnel Management, which ended up exposing the personal information of millions of government employees.
The $19 billion going toward cybersecurity is part of a $4 trillion budget that is currently being reviewed by Congress.
