New EO Sets Strict Deadlines to Improve National Cybersecurity

President Joe Biden has issued an executive order imposing tight deadlines on agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to implement measures to improve the nation’s cyber posture. 

The EO released May 12 requires agencies to enact Biden’s plan to revamp the federal government’s cybersecurity under timelines as short as 30 days within the order’s signing.

Acting CISA Director Brandon Wales took the strict deadlines in stride, saying it reflects the urgency to confront current cybersecurity threats and risks, FCW reported Thursday. 

CISA will play a key role in implementing many of the initiatives in the EO. These include helping standardize contract language for appropriate cybersecurity requirements, developing a federal cloud security strategy, releasing cloud-security technical reference architecture documentation and establishing a collaborative framework for cloud-related cybersecurity and incident response activities. 

Agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget, the General Services Administration and the FBI will help CISA carry out Biden’s plan. 

Speaking at an event hosted by the George Washington University, Wales said work outlined in the EO are achievable and that CISA already had a head start in many of Biden’s cybersecurity directives. 

“There already has been a significant move towards multifactor authentication across the dot gov, already more than 95% of all network traffic in the dot gov is already encrypted,” Wales noted. 

The acting CISA director noted, however, that some of the measures in the EO will “stretch the system” and require much effort to pull off.