Cracking down on cyberattacks
During Biden’s first six months in office, government agencies and critical companies were beset by cyberattacks. These incidents included the SolarWinds hack, which involved Russian government hackers infiltrating around a dozen agencies for at least a year. Ransomware attacks were also a major source of concern, with the administration forced to reckon with Colonial Pipeline, the source of almost half of the East Coast’s fuel supply, shutting down operations in May 2021. In the years since, cybersecurity concerns have only increased, including a Chinese-linked breach last year that impacted email accounts at the Commerce and State departments, skyrocketing new vulnerabilities opened up by the use of artificial intelligence technologies, and new geopolitical-linked targeting of critical systems.