Obama’s cybersecurity agenda bold, but relies on untested funding, experts say

President Obama is floating a $ 3.1 billion plan to upgrade drastically outdated federal cyber infrastructure, but it depends on uncertain initial outlay from Congress and an untried funding mechanism, experts say.

The IT Modernization Fund would require one-time funding and then be replenished down the road by agencies that have tapped it to pay for moving from old systems like mainframes to more modern, reliable and defensible machines.

“It’s not similar to anything that’s been done before,” says Ari Schwartz, former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Cybersecurity for the White House, now managing director of cybersecurity services for Venable.

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