House Appropriations Committee Dents Budget for Cyber Tool That Scoped Out OPM Breaches

House Appropriations Committee has slightly undercut a White House budget request for Department of Homeland Security network surveillance technology integral to post-megahack cleanup. Citing the cost of President Barack Obama's proposed pay raises and concerns about contracting for the tool, lawmakers passed a $474 million measure to fund EINSTEIN -- a roughly $5 million dent from the request. EINSTEIN looks for the telltale signs of intruders in government agency Web traffic. The "signatures" identified reveal known attacks, like the Office of Personnel Management espionage campaign that compromised 21.5 million individuals' Social Security numbers, personnel records and background investigations. President Obama in February asked Congress for $479.8 million in fiscal 2016 to deploy the latest edition of the tool, E3A, across the government. This was before the administration in April used the technology to discover several intrusions related to the hacking campaign, thought to be a data raid on people who handle classified material.

The House Appropriations Committee's proposal, approved July 15 by a 32-17 vote, "includes reductions to the request corresponding to the amounts associated with the pay raise assumed in the president’s budget, as well as reductions due to projected underexecution of personnel costs." A Senate subcommittee, however, has assented to President Obama's requested funding level. The two chambers now must reconcile differences in their DHS spending bills and take a final vote.