Pentagon to raise $500 million to investigate cloud as potential security measure

Officials at the U.S. Department of Defense a funding initiative to raise $500 million to investigate cyber security programs, which include cloud computing and encrypted data processing.

The $500 million is part of the Pentagon’s 2012 $2.3 billion budget request to improve the Defense Department’s cyber capabilities.

“Cyber defense is not a military mission, like defending our airspace, where the sole responsibility lies with the military,” said deputy defense secretary William Lynn. “The overwhelming percentage of our nation’s critical infrastructure - including the internet itself - is largely in private hands. It is going to take a public-private partnership to secure our networks.”

Lynn also stated the military is in talks with technical experts at commercial companies to safeguard the Pentagon’s computer networks from potential attacks and espionage. Lynn referred to this new governmental measure as “Cyber 3.0.”

According to U.S. lawmakers, hackers attempt to probe government networks “millions of times” a day, and 9 million Americans fall victim to identity theft from cyber criminals each year.

Lynn hopes adopting some type of managed IT service or encrypted data process will be a major step forward.

Like the Pentagon, officials at the White House recently released an outline for their cloud adoption strategy.