White House Rushes to Finish Cyber Order After China Hacks

Source: Bloomberg

January 8, 2025 at 5:04 PM EST
Updated on January 8, 2025 at 7:40 PM EST


The Biden administration is racing to put out an executive order meant to shore up US cybersecurity in its dwindling days in office, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The executive order, which has cleared some internal hurdles and is close to being published, incorporates lessons from a series of major breaches during the Biden administration, including the most recent Treasury Department hack attributed to China, according people familiar with the matter who didn’t want to be named to discuss information that hasn’t yet been made public.

Among the measures, it directs the government to implement “strong identity authentication and encryption” across communications, according to an undated draft of the order seen by Bloomberg News. In the December Treasury hack, intruders accessed unclassified documents stored locally on laptops and desktop computers. Encrypting information sent by email and worked on in the cloud could help safeguard it from hackers who successfully access systems but then cannot open specific documents.

The US National Security Council didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-08/white-house-rushes-to-finish-cyber-order-after-china-hacks?srnd=homepage-americas