US Government Will Invest $15 Billion In National Cyber Security

The US House of Representatives is busy on national spending plans for the 2023 fiscal year and one outstanding aspect of their plans is cyber security spending which is expected to be $15.6 billion. The bulk of this money will be $11.2 billion allocated to the Department of Defense and a remarkable $3 billion to defend critical infrastructure going to the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The increased spending budget allocations for cyber security are probably connected to an earlier government directive stressing the need for better national cyber defences. 

This is not a new strategy as In September 2018, the White House released the National Cyber Strategy, which reinforces ongoing work and provides strategic direction for the Federal Government to take action to  improve  cyber security across the government and private sector. “Cyber threats have become a top risk to delivering critical Government services, and this Administration is committed to addressing root cause issues and taking transformational steps to modernise Federal cyber security defences” says the White House Report. 

It looks like 2023 is going to be an excellent year for cyber security companies who are cleared to sell their products to the government. 

These spending plans are the US government's response to numerous high profile cyber security incidents, such as the attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which created severe fuel shortages across the eastern seaboard. Importantly, the extra spending will drive innovation. 

Innovation has always been an important part of the cyber security industry and security firms have always invested resources into developing new tools and capabilities that will help them to stay ahead of cyber criminals and competitors. With billions of dollars in government spending being poured into the security industry, there is a justifiable expectation of powerful new security products.

In particular, cloud services have the potential to make an exponential leap forward as a direct result of being able to invest more heavily in product development and security research.

The $3 billion for CISA has is significant investment in strengthening the agency's effectiveness in delivering cyber security guidance and recommendations to government agencies and to the private sector. The increased funding will also allow CISA to undertake cyber security research, positioning it to produce better recommendations. This will likely have a multiplying effect on the private sector to strengthen defences in response to CISA guidelines. 

The drive to protect an increasingly digitised business sector, the Internet of Things (IoT) devices as well as consumers from cyber crime will propel global spending on cyber security products and services to $1.75 trillion cumulatively for the five-year period from 2021 to 2025.

The White House:     GovInfo:    Security Week:      Statista:      Hacker News:   

Cybersecurity Ventures:   Cybersecurity Dive:    

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