Biden is targeting cybersecurity
President Joe Biden urged a group of chief executive officers to help improve cybersecurity across the nation’s critical infrastructure and economy, citing a lack of trained professionals to adequately protect the U.S.
“Our skilled cybersecurity workforce is not growing fast enough to keep pace,” Biden said Wednesday at a meeting with chief executives including Apple’s Tim Cook, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon.com’s Andy Jassy, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon.
The meeting follows massive cyber and ransomware attacks over the past year on critical infrastructure, including that of Colonial Pipeline Co. and JBS SA, as well as software and cloud providers such as Microsoft and SolarWinds Corp., which have largely been perpetrated by cybergroups based in Russia and China.
Biden called the meeting to discuss how industry and the federal government can partner to improve cybersecurity in the face of debilitating ransomware and cyberattacks. The president plans to urge the CEOs to make commitments on workforce development and improvements to cybersecurity in their sectors, according to a senior administration official.
As part of the meeting, the White House is announcing new public-private initiatives as well as cybersecurity workforce training efforts to fill the approximately 500,000 open jobs in the industry.
The talent shortfall in cybersecurity spans industries. That means gaps exist in all 16 critical infrastructure sectors, like energy, health care and manufacturing — and that companies in those sectors lack the necessary personnel to adequately defend computer networks against cyberattacks, said Simone Petrella, CEO of the cybersecurity training firm CyberVista.
The cybersecurity talent portal CyberSeek — a project support by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education — estimates more than 464,000 cybersecurity job opening between April 2020 and March 2021.
Biden’s administration continues to point to cybersecurity as a priority amid the uptick in attacks. Among the actions the White House has taken this year is an executive order directing federal agencies to boost security protocols and mandating cyber incident reporting from large pipeline companies. But more collaboration is needed between private companies and government, the official said, adding that the private sector in many cases has more authority or influence than the government to make necessary cybersecurity changes.
The meeting was to focus on ransomware, the root causes of malicious cyber activity, and how to ensure that cybersecurity is baked into technology sold by industry from the start, according to the official.
Other participants included chief executives from IBM and ADP as well as from banking giants Bank of America, TIAACREF Individual & Institutional Services and US Bancorp; energy companies Southern Co. and Duke Energy; and water and wastewater utilities including American Water Works Co.
After a meeting with Biden, several key Cabinet secretaries were to lead three breakout sessions with the industry participants.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will lead a session on critical infrastructure resilience, with executives from the energy and water sectors.