President Biden's Cybersecurity Executive Order Has Implications For The Private Sector

On May 12, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order to implement new policies aimed at strengthening the nation's cybersecurity. The Executive Order was issued in response to the recent SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange, and Colonial Pipeline cybersecurity incidents, which were, according to the White House, “a sobering reminder that U.S. public and private sector entities increasingly face sophisticated malicious cyber activity from both nation-state actors and cyber criminals.”

Although the new policies and standards announced by the Executive Order will apply largely to federal governmental agencies, there are still important implications for companies that do business with the federal government and for the private sector in general. For example, the Executive Order directs the federal government to develop a standard set of operational procedures to be used in responding to cybersecurity vulnerabilities and incidents. Even if this standardized approach