White House Calls For Federal Reforms In Long-Anticipated Cybersecurity Executive Order

President Biden's Executive Order calls for an extensive reassessment and revamping of the federal government's cybersecurity defenses and incident response capabilities, establishing benchmarks that may inform standards among private entities.

Following the 2020 cyberattack on numerous United States government agencies, President Biden issued an "Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity" ("EO") that seeks to strengthen public and private sector cybersecurity defenses and incident response capabilities. The federal government reforms in the EO center around three key themes: modernization, accountability, and resilience.   

First, the EO directs agencies to modernize their information technology ("IT") systems by prioritizing the use of cloud services, utilizing multifactor authentication, and adopting encryption technologies for data at rest and in transit. As part of this effort, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ("CISA")