Today, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco will give a speech at the Wilson Center at an event on cyber threats. According to the Center, Monaco will “preview plans for preventing the most pernicious state and non-state digital intrusions and Administration efforts to provide early warning about cyber attacks.”

And apparently, one way to prevent these sort of attacks, which are becoming more and more prevalent, is to create a new government agency devoted to the sharing of intelligence on cyberattacks.

The Washington Post is reporting that Monaco will announce the creation of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center.

“The cyberthreat is one of the greatest threats we face, and policymakers and operators will benefit from having a rapid source of intelligence,” Monaco told the Post. “It will help ensure that we have the same integrated, all-tools approach to the cyberthreat that we have developed to combat terrorism.”

According to the Post, the new agency will start off with a $35 million budget and about 50 people on staff, and will fall under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The idea behind the creation of a specialized cyber threat agency is to make sure the government has a centralized place to share intelligence. Apparently, the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center is “modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center, which was launched in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks amid criticism that the government failed to share intelligence that could have unraveled the al-Qaeda plot.”

The recent hack of Sony Pictures most likely had an impact on the decision to create the new agency. According to the FBI, there was enough evidence to suggest that North Korea was, at least in part, responsible for the attack.

Image via dni.gov