Biden administration, in one of its biggest effort, releases a strategy to make cyber agencies strengthen their cyber security controls. The major step is taken after the few major high-profile hacks against the government and private infrastructure.
The strategy is planned aftermath of the 2020 spying campaign by alleged Russian hackers that invaded various US agencies and remained undetected by the federal agencies for months. To gain access to the unclassified networks of the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and others, the hackers tampered with software developed by a federal contractor, Solar Winds, among other tools.
The strategy, which will be released by the Office of Management and Budget, stems from a cyber-security executive order signed by President Joe Biden last May in response to breaches to federal networks and a ransomware attack on a major US pipeline operator.
Overview of the Strategy proposed
- The strategy demands multiple sign in to the agency networks through various layers of security, to ensure the protection of their internal network traffic from hackers.
- A cyber security concept of “Zero Trust”, which is popular at big corporations, to the federal government is proposed.
What is Zero Trust?
The concept of “zero trust” states that no computer user or system, whether inside or outside of an organization, is inherently trustworthy. Continuous security checks are required to ensure that hackers are not impersonating others, and systems should be isolated as much as possible to prevent malicious code from spreading.
- One of the major parts of the strategy is that the agency will have a “complete inventory” of every electronic device on their network.
- “This strategy is a major step in our efforts to build a defensible and coherent approach to our federal cyber defenses,” National Cyber Director Chris Inglis said in a statement.
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Pallavi Singh
Content Writer, WCSF