FBI Director James Comey told a House appropriations subcommittee Thursday the bureau has requested $9.50 billion in total appropriations to carry out law enforcement, national security and criminal justice operations in fiscal 2017.
Comey said in his written testimony the budget request includes $85.1 million to fund the bureau’s efforts to identify threats in cyberspace and share threat information with other agencies and the private sector.
“We are targeting the most dangerous malicious cyber activity: high-level intrusions by state-sponsored hackers and global cyber syndicates and the most prolific botnets,” he told the subcommittee.
He noted that cyber criminals attempt to access state and trade secrets, technology and government ideas on a daily basis as well as attack critical infrastructure assets.
The bureau also launched programs over the past year to increase collaboration and coordination between its cyber and counterintelligence divisions in a move to “identify, pursue and defeat hostile intelligence services using cyber means to penetrate or disrupt U.S. government entities or economic interests,” according to Comey.