Biden Signs Cybersecurity Executive Order After Colonial Pipeline Attack

United States President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday that advances federal cybersecurity capabilities and encourages improvements in digital security standards across the private sector, which has been affected by a series of cyberattacks from High profile.

The executive order sets out a series of initiatives designed to better equip federal agencies with cybersecurity tools. A cyber attack against Colonial Pipeline follows that resulted in the deactivation of some internal computer systems with ransomware. This led Colonial to shut down the pipeline, causing fuel shortages and panic buying in the southeastern United States.

On Wednesday, Atlanta-based Colonial said it “began the restart of pipeline operations at 5 pm ET.”

The order also requires software companies that sell to the government to maintain certain cybersecurity standards in their products and to report whether they themselves have been compromised by hackers. The requirement was first reported by Reuters in March.

A senior administration official described the executive order as having a “very significant” impact on the government’s ability to detect and respond to hacking incidents.

The pipeline cyberattack is the latest in a series of high-profile cyber incidents targeting US companies and government agencies over the past six months.

In December, a hacking operation of the Russian supply chain was made public that was introduced in nine federal agencies. More recently, the government has been investigating a different hacking campaign with ties to China that affected five civilian agencies.

“It is difficult to learn from each incident and ensure that, in general, the government and companies have information to protect themselves,” the official said. “So we’ve pushed the authority as much as we could and said that anyone who does business with the US government will have to share the incidents so that we can use that information to protect Americans.”

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