The White House is seeking to hire its first chief information security officer (CISO).

The new role will work closely with the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for protecting federal civilian networks. However, the position will be housed in the Office of Management and Budget.

The CISO hiring is part of a larger cybersecurity defense plan that will also include a $3.1 billion fund to replace outdated IT infrastructure; a commission to study cybersecurity problems, and a program to recruit cybersecurity experts into government roles.

Overall, the government wants to allocate $19 billion for cybersecurity spending in fiscal 2017, a 35-percent increase over the current year.

The proposed $3.1 billion Information Technology Modernization Fund would be used to replace systems that pose a high risk and to investigate more modern architectures, such as cloud services.

The fund requires approval from the U.S. Congress.

Other parts of the new cybersecurity strategy include a Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP), which will aim to help consumers better protect themselves on the Internet.

A second area will be to strengthen core Internet technologies, including open source software, standards related to Internet routing and the Network Time Protocol. The government will also work with the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative, formed in 2014 to identify widely used open-source projects in need of extra support.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-obama-budget-cyber-idUSKCN0VI0R1