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Craigslist founder and former CEO Craig Newmark has laid out an additional $200 million in donations to cybersecurity, putting the total amount he has pledged to donate since September 2024 at $300 million.
During a recent edition of the Opening Bid podcast, Newmark told Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi the US is “under attack now” and isn’t prepared for the breadth of cyber threats facing it, the site reported. A large share of the funding will go to volunteer efforts to shore up defenses for critical infrastructure, he said.
“It’s not like I’m in the recruiting line after Pearl Harbor, because my dad volunteered in the ’40s, but I guess that’s what I should be doing,” Newmark quipped.
“I’ve started to fund networks of smart volunteers who can help people protect infrastructure, particularly the small companies and utilities across the country who are responsible for most of our electrical and power supplies, transportation infrastructure, food distribution,” he explained. He added that many such systems “have no protection” and, if knocked out, could add “weeks and weeks” to any recovery effort after a major cyberattack.
Federal agencies reported over 32,000 attacks to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in fiscal year 2023, up 9.9% from the year before (the majority of the incidents were minor). Jen Easterly, CISA’s outbound administrator, has warned market forces “aren’t working” on cybersecurity.
CISA currently lacks the data to provide a full picture of the scope of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure entities, though it is implementing mandatory incident reporting rules that could eventually impact over 300,000 organizations. (The future of those rules remains hazy after a recent Supreme Court decision.) Cybersecurity firm KnowBe4 has estimated attacks on critical infrastructure exceed 420 million annually across the world, with the US the primary target, and the FBI recorded nearly 1,200 ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure in 2023.
Newmark’s prior round of funding, announced in September, is planned to be equally split between critical infrastructure and education of the general public about data privacy and protection, CBS News reported.
According to Newmark’s website, the “Cyber Civil Defense” initiative primarily disburses funds to groups like nonpartisan tech nonprofit Aspen Digital; the Global Cyber Alliance, which coordinates public-private cybersecurity partnerships; and Consumer Reports, a website that investigates scams and substandard products.
Other recipients include nonprofits that teach tech skills to underserved communities and projects like the Ransomware Task Force.
In 2020, Forbes reported even the “most conservative evaluation” of Newmark’s wealth stood at $1 billion, though he declined to clarify further. However, he has claimed to have given away over half his net worth.
“My deal is that I want all that money to go straight to the nonprofit world—I just have to figure out where that goes and how do I handle it over the next five to 20 years,” Newmark told Sozzi.