The Trump administration, through the Department of Defense, plans to spend $1 billion over the next four years on what it calls “offensive cyber operations.”
The provision in Trump’s landmark One Big Beautiful Bill does not say what those “offensive cyber operations” are, nor what specific tools or software would qualify. The budget does note that the money will go toward enhancing and improving the capabilities of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which operates in the Asia-Pacific region, including China, the U.S.’ biggest geopolitical rival.
The move to spend a billion on cyber comes as the newly passed law also slashed a billion from the U.S.’ cyber defense budget, at a time when the U.S. faces ongoing cyber threats from China.
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat and long-standing member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the provision also comes as the Trump administration cut funding for defensive cybersecurity programs, including gutting the U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA and its budget. The cuts have been only in part rolled back after a federal court ruled the firing of 130 employees unlawful.
“The Trump administration has slashed funding for cybersecurity and government technology and left our country wide open to attack by foreign hackers,” Wyden said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. “Vastly expanding U.S. government hacking is going to invite retaliation — not just against federal agencies, but also rural hospitals, local governments and private companies who don’t stand a chance against nation-state hackers.”
Offensive cyber operations can describe a wide range of targeted hacks against U.S. adversaries, which include the use of zero-day exploits — unknown flaws in software that give their operators the ability to hack into a target’s device — or the deployment of spyware, which can be used to steal data from a person.
But these operations can also include more everyday components needed to support those operations, such as setting up the infrastructure needed to carry out cyberattacks, intelligence gathering, such as collecting or buying internet traffic (known as “netflow”), and more.
Spokespeople from the White House and the Department of Defense acknowledged receipt, but did not respond to a request for comment.
