Trump's decision moves Cyber Command one step closer from being moved away from the National Security Agency.

"They've had all the manning, they have all the training, they're fully operational capable."

The nation's top cyberwarrior bluntly told a House panel Tuesday that it would take a 16 percent increase in U.S. Cyber Command's budget to separate it from the NSA and become a full-fledged combatant command, as lawmakers want.

"Sometimes people are suspicious because of all the hype about Russia and Russians, that makes our lives harder," Eugene Kaspersky said.

U.S. Cyber Command is not “optimized” today to combat information operations orchestrated by foreign powers, said NSA Director and U.S. Cyber Command head Michael Rogers during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday. “It right now is not in our defined set of responsibilities per say,” Rogers told lawmakers. “I would be the first to admit that [information warfare] is not what our workforce is optimized for …we are certainly not where we need to be.”

Low morale at the NSA is causing some of the agency’s most talented people to leave in favor of private sector jobs, former NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander said Tuesday. Several other agency insiders supported his assertion that the NSA is experiencing a "brain drain."