U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday (May 11) signed an executive order that seeks to increase cybersecurity efforts on the part of the government, with an eye on guarding infrastructure from attacks.
Reuters noted that this executive order is among the first “significant” actions to address cybersecurity, which the newly installed president has called a top priority. In addressing infrastructure, the focus is on energy and protecting financial firms from attacks that have been forewarned for years. The order, said Reuters, has garnered “largely favorable” reviews from industry observers and participants and also seeks to enlist cooperation with other nations.
The order states that the heads of various federal agencies must adapt to and adopt a framework that has been developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in order to assess threats.
And in addition, those agencies have 90 days to offer implementation plans. That framework had been encouraged by the NIST but had not been mandated. The order also states that agencies must examine the repercussions of a sharing information technology and encourages voluntary cooperation with private firms to develop cyberattack counterstrategies.
