Will Israeli budget cuts hurt the country’s ability to counter Cyber attacks?
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עברית (Hebrew)
This time it seems that the Israeli Government’s budget axe will fall hard on the Israeli defense budget. The specifics are not yet known, but just when the cyber war is reaching a new peak, the question being asked according to sources, is whether cuts will affect the readiness to fight cyber wars effectively.
The U.S at the same time has recognized the importance of its ability to counter cyber attacks. President Obama’s budget proposal for the 2014 fiscal year starting in October would boost spending on information technology by about 2 percent, as the government looks to ramp up work on cyber security.
Obama recently issued an executive order directing Federal agencies to develop a framework for combating cyber attacks on critical public and private infrastructures and to increase the amount of information that is shared about threats. Pentagon budget cuts had been expected to herald a wave of consolidation within the defense industry.
The President’s budget request allots more than $13 billion to cyber programs, nearly 16 percent of a Federal IT budget totaling about $82 billion. A new proposal aims to continue Federal initiatives such as moving more data to Internet-based “cloud” systems and consolidating redundant data centers. The administration said its IT projects should help the government do more with less by improving productivity, lowering the cost of operations and streamlining services, “all while bolstering cybersecurity.”
According to the Washington Post, the Defense Department would invest more than $39 billion in IT under Obama’s proposed budget, with major civilian agencies combined spending about $42 billion. Specific allotments include $300 million for the Homeland Security Department to support better monitoring of Federal networks, $85 million to the Commerce Department for cyber-network support, and $79 million to help the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense to better identify and respond to cyber incidents.
The modest boost comes after Federal administrators sought to rein in spending following a number of big projects which ran over budget and took far longer to complete than originally planned. As a result, the Federal IT budget was pared back by almost $300 million in the first half of the 2013 fiscal year.
