Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s energy minister, has said the country’s energy ministry has begun to collaborate with the Israel National Cyber Bureau to address a “severe cyber attack” discovered Monday on the country’s electricity authority, The Times of Israel reported Tuesday.

Steinitz told Cybertech Conference attendees in Tel Aviv, Israel, that his agency has already identified the virus and is now prepared to deploy the software that will work to neutralize the bug on computer networks.

“We are handling the situation and I hope that soon, this very serious event will be over… but as of now, computer systems are still not working as they should,” he said at the conference.

“This is a fresh example of the sensitivity of infrastructure to cyberattacks, and the importance of preparing ourselves in order to defend ourselves against such attacks.”

Steinitz did not mention whether suspects linked to the cyber attack have already been identified, the report said.

The cyber incident occurred six months after Israel’s National Cyber Authority issued a warning of an extensive cyber attack in the country.

President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress for about $95 million in new funding to bolster cyber threat defense of computer systems across the government, Bloomberg reported Saturday.

Angela Greiling Keane writes the Obama administration aims to prevent another massive breach following the Office of Personnel Management hack last year that compromised approximately 20 million government personnel records.

“You can never reach 100 percent, but we will be striving to reduce the risk to as low a level as we can,” Michael Daniel, the cybersecurity ccordinator at the National Security Council, said during a conference call with reporters.

Office of Management and Budget press secretary Jamal Brown said Friday in a blog post the White House will establish a National Background Investigations Bureau as part of security clearance and investigative process reform efforts.

The Defense Department will be tasked to manage security of information technology systems of the bureau, Brown noted.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that the country should continue to counter Islamic militant groups that use cyber warfare as a way to push humanity back to “medievalism,” The Times of Israel reported Tuesday.

David Shamah writes that Netanyahu told his audience at the Cybertech 2016 event that Israel should push further to increase investment in cybersecurity and become the leading cyber power in the world.

According to the prime minister, the international community should also take part in efforts to combat cyber criminals.

“There is a critical need for like-minded governments to have serious discussions about cooperation in the broader international realm,” he said.

“We will then be able to establish international standards that will increase cybersecurity.”

Reuters also reported that Netanyahu has indicated his plan to minimize restrictions on cyber technology exports to boost the country’s cybersecurity industry, which saw increased sales in 2015.

“My goal is to enable that growth, that productivity, while maintaining a very narrow band of interest of national security,” he said.

The prime minister’s assurance follows news that the Israel defense ministry intends to limit the export of technology that could be used on cyber attacks, Reuters reports.

Amy Hess, executive assistant director of the FBI‘s science and technology branch, has said tools at the bureau’s Biometrics Technology Center have helped agents investigate criminal cases faster, FCW reported Tuesday.

Mark Rockwell writes the FBI and the Defense Department opened the facility at the bureau’s Clarksburg, West Virginia-based campus in August last year.

The center houses the Next Generation Identification platform and other systems designed to examine fingerprints, DNA information, facial traits, body characteristics and voice patterns.

Hess told her audience at the Biometrics for Government and Law Enforcement conference held Tuesday in Virginia that the NGI system works to process up to 167,000 fingerprint sets a day and generates an accuracy rate of 99.6 percent.

She added that the biometric facility has developed technology designed to process DNA samples in just two hours without human intervention, FCW reports.