Reviewing President Biden On Cybersecurity
In the wake of the Colonial Pipeline cyber attack, cybersecurity remains a key focus of the Biden … [+]
On May 1st, 2021, President Joe Biden achieved his first 100 days in office and many had concrete expectations for these first 100 days. This historical milestone has long served as an indicator of what new administrations set out to do during their overall term. Policies begin to form, teams begin to get put together, and most importantly, spending begins to take shape. There is no way around the fact that technology begets spending and with the priorities we have as a country, it all begins on where and how investments are made. The big picture is what matters here and the next 1,000 days of visibility (and beyond) are a more proper time frame.
Damning Intelligence Report
The U.S. Intelligence community delivered an extensive annual report on threat assessments in early April. Composed by eighteen agencies, the report outlined major threats to the United States, including the increasing influence of nation-state adversaries such as China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, as well as cyber threats from terrorist organizations and criminal enterprises. Beating on the drum of cybersecurity, our adversaries have weaponized technology and have deployed missions to disrupt our critical infrastructures in just about every vein of society.
How to Build Off Critical Threats
The biggest takeaway from the U.S. Intelligence report is that we are in a world of challenges and potential hurt. The report was quickly followed by a recent cybersecurity executive order from President Biden on May 12th. While it certainly is a welcome step to protect federal infrastructure, it is still a far cry from the two way partnership needed to protect critical and strategic infrastructure run by private enterprises such as the Colonial Pipeline. The truth is while we look to the government to take up the cybersecurity mission, the weakness of one becomes the weakness of many. The tech industry must meet federal, local, and state resources somewhere in the middle because governments cannot be the sole responsible party to defend critical national infrastructure. We…
