Gov't Needs to Spend More on Cyber R&D

The US 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 US 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 Wednesday. Franz told lawmakers that 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.