FBI Director James Comey told a House appropriations subcommittee Thursday the bureau has requested $9.50 billion in total appropriations to carry out law enforcement, national security and criminal justice operations in fiscal 2017.

Comey said in his written testimony the budget request includes $85.1 million to fund the bureau’s efforts to identify threats in cyberspace and share threat information with other agencies and the private sector.

“We are targeting the most dangerous malicious cyber activity: high-level intrusions by state-sponsored hackers and global cyber syndicates and the most prolific botnets,” he told the subcommittee.

He noted that cyber criminals attempt to access state and trade secrets, technology and government ideas on a daily basis as well as attack critical infrastructure assets.

The bureau also launched programs over the past year to increase collaboration and coordination between its cyber and counterintelligence divisions in a move to “identify, pursue and defeat hostile intelligence services using cyber means to penetrate or disrupt U.S. government entities or economic interests,” according to Comey.

The FBI has issued a warning about a series of hacking activities against U.S. networks that it believes are conducted by sympathizers of the Islamic State militant group, Motherboard reported Tuesday.

Joseph Cox writes the publication obtained an FBI document that states certain hackers have defaced websites, launched denial-of-service attacks and leaked personal information over the past two years “to spread pro-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant propaganda and to incite violence against the United States and the West.”

The document identified online groups such as the Caliphate Cyber Army, Islamic Cyber Army and Elite Islamic State Hackers, the report said.

According to the report, the groups use what the FBI calls unsophisticated methods of attack — such as structured query language injection, cross-site scripting and social engineering – which are meant to exploit website vulnerabilities and steal account credentials.

Cox reports the bureau recommends that users enable automated software updates, disable computer macros and adopt two-factor authentication to help prevent the spread of attacks.

Rear Adm. Timothy White, formerly director for intelligence at the U.S. Pacific Command, has been named commander of the Cyber National Mission Force as part of the U.S. Cyber Command.

U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, announced White’s appointment in a Defense Department release posted Wednesday.

CNMF is one of the three mission units of Cybercom’s Cyber Mission Force and works to counter cyber threats to the country’s information technology infrastructure.

White joined the Navy as a surface warfare officer and served as a cryptologist at the National Security Agency’s operations directorate.

The Defense Superior Service Medal recipient also served as commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command from 1997 to 1999 and as director of the commander’s action group at Cybercom.