President Obama’s $19 Billion Cyber-Defense Budget and Plan is a Bold and Necessary Step

“The federal government is finally taking bold steps to fulfill what the Constitution says in its preamble – ‘to provide for the common defense,’ in this case, the common cyber defense.

The actions and budget announced today are an important recognition and investment in the defense of the critical information infrastructure of the United States, and provides an example for governments, businesses, and NGOs worldwide.

The plan recognizes that it is critical to implement platforms with analytics and capabilities to understand complex networks and assist in prioritizing what needs to be done first to improve resilience.

As the president writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, ‘we are still in the early days of this challenge.’ Networks will only grow more complex, creating opportunities for hackers and challenges for defenders.

The federal government’s new Chief Information Security Officer should be asking talented agency teams, ‘how are we measuring our cyber results and defenses? How are we thinking about resilience? And how are we determining the first step to take to make our digital infrastructure more resilient?’

Networks were not designed with cyberattacks in mind, so they are not resilient to them.  But it’s not too late. Building digital resilience into networks before attacks is the only way to get ahead of the ongoing, automated, and ever more sophisticated attacks.

The proposal by the President can be an excellent step in leading the world to a more cyber resilient future.”