Tech executives invited to meet President Biden on cybersecurity
It follows a recent spate of ransomware attacks on American entities, hampering services and logistics
US President Joe Biden will host a meeting with the chiefs of some of the tech industry's most influential companies on Wednesday, where they will discuss efforts to improve the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure following a dramatic surge in attacks in recent months.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports that Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Andy Jassy and Microsoft's Satya Nadella will attend the meeting.
Leaders from IBM, Google, JPMorgan Chase and the energy firm Southern Company have also been invited.
While precise details about the event are not known at this time, sources told Bloomberg that President Biden wants to discuss critical infrastructure entities' efforts to improve cybersecurity and collaborations with the government. 'Critical infrastructure' in this case refers to banking firms, as well as energy, water and other utilities.
The government is also ready to collaborate with tech firms, to develop software to improve supply chain security.
Tim Cook has met with officials at the White House on several occasions in recent years. He was on a board for former President Donald Trump, and wrote a letter to President Biden earlier this year, praising his quick action on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.
The White House cybersecurity meeting follows a recent spate of ransomware attacks on American entities, hampering services and logistics in the US.
In May, US fuel distributor Colonial Pipeline suffered a massive ransomware attack that crippled fuel delivery in southeastern US states. The shutdown sparked panic, with residents seen lining up at petrol pumps for several hours over fears of fuel shortages.
In June, Brazil-based JBS, the world's largest meat-packer by sales, paid a ransom of $11 million after a massive attack on its computer systems in the US and Australia.
Florida-based IT firm Kaseya also suffered a ransomware attack last month, which was thought to be the work of the Russia-based REvil group.
Following these high-profile attacks, President Biden signed a national security memorandum in July - aimed at strengthening cybersecurity for the country's critical infrastructure, like power and water suppliers, public health organisations and transport systems.
The memorandum established an Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative: a collaborative effort between the federal government and firms running industrial control systems, to provide the latest tools and technologies to defend against attacks.
The US State Department has announced a reward of up to $10 million for information that could help identify or locate cyber actors working at the direction of a foreign government and targeting critical infrastructure in the US.
President Biden also signed an executive order in May, aiming to implement new policies to protect the country from future cyber attacks. The order directed federal agencies to adopt data encryption and multi-factor authentication within six months to make it difficult for threat actors to compromise their IT networks.
The order also requires private firms providing IT service to government departments and agencies to implement higher security standards, and notify law-enforcement agencies if hackers breach their systems.