Avril Haines: Good Cyber Hygiene Practices Will Reduce Critical Infrastructure Cyberattacks

Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, has emphasized the importance of good cyber hygiene in preventing cyberattacks.

Speaking before members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Haines, a past Wash100 winner and Potomac Officers Club event speaker, said that hackers are taking advantage of the weak cyber posture of the U.S. critical infrastructure sector, which has been using default or weak passwords and failing to patch known vulnerabilities.

The intelligence chief highlighted the need to practice good cyber hygiene due to an increasing trend of malicious actors targeting the nation’s water, food, energy and transportation industries, Defense .gov reported.

At the same hearing, Haines disclosed that ransomware attacks achieved a record in 2023 after increasing to 74 percent.

Cyber hygiene is nothing new in the information technology community. In a 2022 interview with ExecutiveBiz, Clay Goldwein, senior vice president of national security and justice at CGI, called on the federal government to prioritize funding cyber hygiene initiatives due to its proven track record of preventing a wide range of issues at an early stage.