US announces new cybersecurity agency to respond to enhanced cyberthreats

The White House has reportedly announced the formation of a new agency that will foil cyberattacks by sharing intelligence across agencies during a crisis.

The new Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC) will be created as part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and will be structured like the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Initially, the agency will comprise a staff of about 50 people and have a budget of 35 million dollars, reported The Verge.

The report said that the new agency will apply the lessons learnt after the 9/11 attacks, which were blamed on intelligence failures, to the realm of cybersecurity and will be tasked with analyzing and coordinating responses to cyberthreats.

Terming the cyberthreat "one of the greatest threats" faced by the U.S., Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, said that policymakers and operators will benefit from having "a rapid source of intelligence."

Monaco had been pushing for the formation of a new agency for several months but the initiative gathered steam in the wake of the Sony Pictures hack attack. Monaco pointed out that the response to that attack demonstrated the need to have a centralized agency to analyze intelligence gathered from various agencies like, the FBI, NSA, and CIA.