Fergie's Tech Blog

Experts: U.S. Needs to Spend More on Cyber Security R&D

Grant Gross writes on ComputerWorld:

The U.S. government needs to spend more money on cybersecurity research and development and on education programs in order to fight a rising tide of attacks against government and private groups, cybersecurity experts told U.S. lawmakers.

The U.S. government has a 2009 R&D budget of about $143 billion, and only about $300 million will go to cybersecurity research, said Liesyl Franz, vice president of information security and global public policy at TechAmerica, a trade group. Funding for cybersecurity R&D and for training security professionals "requires immediate and sustained attention," she told the House of Representatives Research and Science Education Subcommittee today.

Franz said there needs to be more formal ways that private industry can work with the government on cybersecurity research. Private organizations are generally asked about a project in the last stages of development, she said.

The federal government also needs to pump more money into the training of cybersecurity professionals because there aren't enough available to fight the growing problems with data theft, added Anita D'Amico, director of the secure decisions division at Applied Visions, a Northport, N.Y., software developer. The U.S. government also needs to launch a marketing campaign to make the general public better understand cybersecurity risks, she said.

posted by Fergie @ 6/10/2009 03:08:00 PM