We are in the midst of a hacker emergency and they are cutting cybersecurity resources, the opposition attacks. The government does not agree and reports that the increase in defense funds also serves to strengthen the ability to prevent and counter the hybrid threat.
Controversy erupts while part of the majority pushes to approve the bill being examined by the Senate which strengthens the role of the armed forces in the sector and provides for the creation of 1,200 'military cyber specialists'. A provision which, according to Senator Enrico Borghi (IV), "does not go in the right direction. There is an amendment by the rapporteur who wants to remove discussion and control over the allocation of resources from parliamentary commissions. We should do the exact opposite, that is, move towards greater transparency".
The defunding denounced by the centre-left refers to a decrease in allocations foreseen in last year's budget for the Fund for the implementation of the National Cybersecurity Strategy, which aims to strengthen the defenses of critical IT infrastructures with a series of interventions involving central public administrations, independent authorities and Regions. The expected allocation for the Fund was 150 million euros per year from 2025 to 2037.
The 2025 Budget Law cut them by 9.6 million euros for last year and by 15 million per year from 2026 to 2037. Further and smaller cuts - with the law of 9 May 2025 - were made to the Fund for the management of cybersecurity: 1 million euros for 2025, 4 million for 2026 and 5 million per year starting from 2027.
The government "has defunded cybersecurity and wastes 14 billion euros on weapons and defense", attacks M5s president Giuseppe Conte. Dem Beatrice Lorenzin also complains about the cuts, inviting the government to "shift resources from weapons systems to the cybersecurity of essential infrastructures, starting with hospitals". The secretary of Più Europa Riccado Magi is of the same opinion: "while Italy is under hacker attack, the government is at its worst and finds itself totally unprepared: it is very serious - he recalls - that last year's budget included cuts specifically in the cybersecurity sector".
Angelo Bonelli's (Avs) criticism is similar: "instead of buying weapons, the government should focus on defending Italy from hackers and come and explain to Parliament what its strategy is", he states.
The majority rejects the accusations, underlining that investments in defense also serve cybersecurity. "Countering the dangers that we have seen first-hand in recent days - notes the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa - is not free, it costs money. Some people pretend not to understand that those resources are not intended for weapons, as they say, but for security and therefore also to counteract this type of dangers that we have seen" in a context "not of declared war but of hybrid war".
Even the Minister for Relations with Parliament Luca Ciriani explains that "when we talk about investments in defense we are not just talking about building barracks or giving an extra rifle to a paratrooper, but about the most advanced frontier of technological warfare". And, while waiting for the bill to be examined by the Senate, the Defense continues to increase its funding for the cyber sector.
The ministry's latest multi-year planning document dedicates a focus to "cyber warfare", informing that Defense has invested 1.91 billion euros in projects related to cybersecurity, of which 503 million are foreseen by the 2025 budget law.
