White House Considers Government-Led Cybersecurity Incubator

President Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly considering a plan to launch a government-led cybersecurity research incubator.

This effort would invest in that research and help launch startups focused on building cybersecurity tools for the government to use, Bloomberg News reported Thursday (Sept. 17), citing sources familiar with the situation.

The White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director has been working on an executive order that would create a program to research and develop cyber technologies that are in line with the government’s priorities, the sources said.

The goal is to attract venture capital investments, with one version of the draft order describing the program as a “cyber foundry” that births new companies, the sources added.

Sources also told Bloomberg that the effort has been compared within the government to Israel’s close alignment of its military priorities with the focus of cybersecurity startups, venture capital investments and academic research.

Several high-profile cybersecurity companies including Wiz, Palo Alto Networks and Check Point Software Technologies were founded by veterans of Israel’s cyber intelligence unit, per the report. Bloomberg notes that while the Pentagon and CIA have long funded tech research with national security and/or military applications, this would be the first cyber-specific effort.

The report added that this effort is happening as the White House wrestles with how to tackle a new strain of artificial intelligence (AI)-related cyberthreats. AI systems are now capable of exacerbating cyberattacks, with some models carrying out hacks undetected, leading to more demand for new cybersecurity talent, Bloomberg said.

And as covered here Thursday, AI is also helping criminals build false identities and mimic real voices and faces well enough to fool identity checks.

“That leaves issuers with an additional question: not only whether a transaction looks risky, but whether the person behind it exists at all,” the report said.

AI has grown adept at faking the tools issuers depend on to confirm someone is who they say they are. Paymentology CTO Tim Joslyn told PYMNTS Intelligence that voice authentication has already failed, leaving financial institutions that depend on it exposed.

“Selfies, videos and behavioral biometrics face similar erosion as automated systems learn to mimic human timing,” the report said. “His deeper worry is behavior that looks ordinary every time it repeats, which is often the clearest sign it isn’t human.”