WASHINGTON--U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to bolster the government's cyber security and protect critical infrastructure from cyber attacks, marking his first significant action to address what he has called a top priority.
The order seeks to improve the often-maligned network security of U.S. government agencies, from which foreign governments and other hackers have pilfered millions of personal records and other forms of sensitive data in recent years.
The White House said the order also aimed to enhance protection of infrastructure such as the energy grid and financial sector from sophisticated attacks that officials have warned could pose a national security threat or cripple parts of the economy.
The directive, which drew largely favorable reviews from cyber experts and industry groups, also lays out goals to develop a more robust cyber deterrence strategy, in part by forging strong cooperation with U.S. allies in cyberspace. White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert said the order sought to build on efforts undertaken by the former Obama administration.
Among the notable changes, heads of federal agencies must use a framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to assess and manage cyber risk, and prepare a report within 90 days documenting how they will implement it.
The Obama administration had encouraged the private sector to adopt the voluntary NIST framework. But it did not require government agencies to do so, which opened it up to criticism as it frequently scrambled to respond to major hacks, such as the theft of more than 20 million personnel records from the Office of Personnel Management.
Government agencies would now "practice what they preach," Bossert told reporters during a White House briefing. "A lot of progress was made in the last administration, but not nearly enough."
