White House tackles outdated cyber tools for federal networks, urges industry to follow suit

摘要

President Joe Biden took steps to modernize national cyber defenses with an executive order and encouraged the private sector to similarly pursue ambitious measures to align their cybersecurity investments with the goal of mitigating future breaches. A laissez-faire attitude towards cybersecurity and poor software security were noted by a senior Biden administration official during a May 12 call with reporters as common threads in last year’s SolarWinds incident and the recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline. The SolarWinds incident allowed hackers to access computer networks used by the Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other government and private entities, while the ransomware attack shut for five days a 5,500-mile pipeline that supplies about 45% of all the gasoline and diesel fuel consumed on the East Coast. A combination of regional shortages and panicbuying caused close to 50% or more of gas stations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia to run out of fuel, and Colonial has said “it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to return to normal.”