Pierluigi Paganini February 16, 2020

The US administration requested $9.8 billion for cyber in next year’s budget for the Department of Defense, the amount is the same as last year.

The US administration requested $9.8 billion for cyber operations in next year’s budget for the Department of Defense, a data that confirms the strategic importance of the fifth domain of the warfare for the US Government

The amount requested for the Department of Defense in the “DOD Releases Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Proposal” is nearly the same one as last year for cyber operations that the US military will conduct in 2020.

The budget was released on February 10, it requests $9.8 billion for fiscal year 2021 on cyber activities, while the previous budget was about $9.6 billion in the fiscal year 2020.

The investments of the US administration in the Cyberspace Domain ($9.8 billion) include:

• Cybersecurity – $5.4 billion
• Cyberspace – Operations – $3.8 billion
• Cyberspace Science and Technology – $556 million
• In addition to the $9.8 billion, the budget funds:​

– Artificial Intelligence – $841 million
– Cloud – $789 million

Below the details for every single item:

♦ $5.4 billion for cybersecurity – The $5.4 billion Cybersecurity budget aims at increasing capabilities in Cross Domain Solutions, Next-Generation Encryption Solutions, and Network Modernizations. It aims at reducing the risk of cyber attacks on networks, systems, and information. The budget includes:

• $678 million for cryptology modernization and next-generation platforms;
• $296.2 million for securing points of information and sharing;
• $198.5 million for Operationalizing Identity and Credential Access Management (ICAM) modernization.
• $67.2 million for Comply to Connect (C2C) and Automated Continuous Endpoint Monitoring (ACEM);
• $69.8 million for critical infrastructure.

♦ $3.8 billion for operations. This investment would cover offensive and defensive operations and support the implementation of the Cyber Strategy by funding programs and activities. The budget includes:

• $431.6 M for Cooperation with allies and partners in the conduct of “hunt forward” defensive cyberspace operations to counter malign cyber actors.
• $238.6 for the development of capabilities to integrate joint, coalition and inter-agency command and control to enhance multi-domain operations.
• $460.4 for mission assurance activities that allow the Department to better understand the risks to its key missions and to increase resilience and implement mitigations to reduce the vulnerability of key assets.

The document includes another $2.2 billion to support the Cyber Mission Forces.

DoD Budget Request is available here.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Department of Defense, hacking)

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