[ISN] Defense cybersecurity budget request likely a third more than reported

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090126_2865.php

By Jill R. Aitoro 
Nextgov
01/26/2009

A government research company estimates that about a third of the 
Defense Department's $4 billion request for spending on IT security is 
included in general spending on various departmental programs and not 
coded specifically as spent on information systems security, making it 
difficult to track the Pentagon's total cybersecurity spending, 
according to a report released on Monday.

More than $1 billion of Defense's IT security budget is embedded in106 
information technology programs and not specifically identified in the 
department's fiscal 2009 IT security budget request, according to a 
report issued by Government Insights, an IDC company that focuses on the 
federal IT market.

Of the more than 2,000 line items in Defense's fiscal 2009 IT budget 
request, 52 are coded specifically for information systems security, 
totaling $2.9 billion, the report noted. Funding for the highly 
confidential Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, which the 
Bush administration began putting together in 2007, is likely contained 
in one or more of the programs, because there is no separate line in the 
budget for the initiative, the report concluded.

In addition, the research firm estimated that another $2 billion of 
information security spending in the intelligence community was not 
accounted for in the total IT security budget request.

"A significant part probably goes to defense intelligence and 
intelligence-related 'black' programs, whose funding and even existence 
is often not revealed but are hidden in other programs," according to 
Mark Kagan, author of the report.

[...]


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