With the rising cyber threats to both the public and private sectors, five industry associations are pushing the House and Senate Appropriations committees to authorize a $705 million increase in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency budget for fiscal year 2022.
The Alliance for Digital Innovation, Computing Technology Industry Association, Cybersecurity Coalition, Information Technology Industry Council and the Internet Association told lawmakers in a joint letter Tuesday the funding boost would help CISA meet cybersecurity goals in the long term.
Citing the recent attacks on SolarWinds, Colonial Pipeline and Pulse Connect Secure, the associations said the additional budget is necessary to protect the country’s information technology assets from a large-scale breach.
The groups wrote that the shift to cloud-based and virtual environments of the workforce due to the COVID-19 pandemic made the service systems more vulnerable to attackers.
“Given this combination of larger attack surfaces and increased use of sophisticated cyberattacks by our adversaries, we must act quickly to strengthen our nation’s security posture,” according to the letter obtained by Federal News Network.
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act approved by Congress in March includes $650 million for cyber risk mitigation initiatives at CISA.
While the funding allocation is a one-time capital to address urgent cybersecurity matters, the associations said it only amounts to “a tiny fraction of the long-term investment needed to build and empower CISA.”