Additional cyber funding sought by FBI amid Chinese hacking risk

SiliconAngle reports that increased cybersecurity and investigative services spending has been requested by the FBI in a bid to better combat China's sophisticated hacking operations. Congress has been urged by FBI Director Christopher Wray to approve $63.4 million for improved cyber investigative capabilities and $27.2 million for enhanced cybersecurity posture and internal network protections, as well as $3.1 million for maintaining communication platform security. "To give you a sense of what we're up against, if each one of the FBIs cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI Cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1," said Wray before the House of Representative Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. Such a request has received the support of the cybersecurity community. "The financial investment by the FBI will hopefully result in additional human and technology support to disrupt cybercrime operations and infrastructure earlier than before, which may help prevent attacks," said Tanium Director of Endpoint Security Research Melissa Bischoping.