The Obama administration is expected to formally announce a new cybersecurity agency Tuesday afternoon, following a string of high-profile cyber-attacks on U.S. companies.
A senior administration official told Fox News the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC), modeled on the National Counterterrorism Center, is part of "a comprehensive strategy" to tackle what it calls "one of the gravest national security dangers that the United States faces."
The official said the center is being established by presidential memorandum, under authority from a 2004 intelligence law. According to the administration, they plan to use existing funds in the 2015 budget and are requesting another $35 million in the 2016 budget proposal for the agency.
Several agencies already fight hackers -- the CIA, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the NSA -- but the official says this agency's mission is to fill the gaps.
"The CTIIC will improve our situational awareness, enhance indications and warning, and strengthen cyber unity of effort for the U.S. government," the official said. "It will ensure indicators of malicious activity are downgraded to the lowest possible classification level to facilitate seamless intelligence flows among centers, including those responsible for sharing with the private sector."
In this year's State of the Union address, President Obama urged Congress to pass legislation "we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information."
Cybersecurity leaped nearly to the top of President Obama's agenda after major hacking attacks against Anthem Inc, Home Depot, Sony Pictures, Target and more.
The hackers who targeted Anthem, the second biggest U.S. health insurer, and accessed personal information of 80 million customers, may have been inside its system for more than a month before being detected, according to the company.
In the Sony Pictures hack, the attackers who breached the Hollywood studio's network went unnoticed until computers were paralyzed and a mountain of data was dumped on the Internet.
The amount of data copied and removed from Sony's systems should have set off internal alarms long before Sony workers found their PCs taken over by malware, said Mike Potts, CEO of Lancope, a network security company based in Alpharetta, Georgia.
The cybersecurity industry characterizes such long-term intrusions as advanced persistent threats or APT. They are often sponsored by states and target valuable commercial and military information.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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