White House Issues Executive Order Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity
In response to the wave of cyberattacks hitting both government and private companies such as “Solarwinds”, the White House has issued an Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. The Executive Order’s stated top priorities are bold and significant investments to defend vital institutions and to lead by example in the prevention, detection, assessment, and remediation of cyber incidents. View the Fact Sheet.
The immediate goals of the Executive Order focus on ensuring federal vendors are meeting or exceeding federal standards, moving to a “zero trust” security model, requiring software developers to meet minimum standards if providing software to the federal government, securing the supply chain, and improving investigations and incident information sharing.
The downstream impact will mean an increased expectation for state and local governments to mirror similar bold and significant investments in cybersecurity. The standards set at the federal level will enable a national, consistent approach to cyber strategies. Now is a good time to update your cyber internal controls as the new state fiscal year approaches!
In addition to your normal incident response protocols, please contact [email protected] with any incidents or suspected incidents of fraud or cyber-attacks or if you need assistance with internal controls.