Collage of six of the meeting’s attendees: from left to right, Tim Cook of Apple, Andy Jassy of Amazon, Hardi Parvoti of Code.org, Greg Hendrick of Vantage Group Holdings, Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, and Walter Lynch of American Water.
Updated August 30, 2021.
Two days ago, President Biden met with top executives across multiple sectors to discuss cybersecurity. Leaders from the largest companies in tech, insurance, education, financial services, and energy & water were empowered by the president.
“The federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,” said Mr. Biden. “I’ve invited you all here because you have the power, the capacity, and the responsibility, I believe, to raise the bar on cybersecurity.”
The goal of the meeting was to “address ‘root causes’ of the attacks, like vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and 500,000 unfilled U.S. cybersecurity jobs.” Mandates may be pursued “if voluntary security standards aren’t widely adopted.” Companies such as Microsoft, Google, and IBM are pledging up to billions of dollars over the next five years, to cybersecurity improvements, increased available services, and training hundreds of thousands of people in IT, data analytics, and cybersecurity. To combat vulnerabilities, leaders of insurance services were urged to “play a role in incentivizing businesses to keep up with good cybersecurity practices.” This could include “insurance policy requirements…to push companies to shore up their defenses.”
As a managed IT service provider, we fully agree with President Biden, who said cybersecurity is a top strategic threat in the coming decades. This emphasis follows suit after the monumental attacks on Solar Winds in 2020 and the Colonial Pipeline in 2021, among a litany of other attacks. Each breach seems to top the last, increasing the severity of combatting this issue.
As hackers, largely based in Russia, alter their tactics, everyone from these top executives of corporate giants, down to small mom-and-pop shops, need to be on defense. In order to avoid the spotlight, hackers are beginning to go after smaller targets that’ll gain less publicity. If you are a small- or medium-sized company, we want to help you. Our proactive measures work around the clock to protect your company from being the next victim. Additionally, if you’d like to see if your security has vulnerabilities, click here.
