Can Biden Make Corporate America Care About Cybersecurity?

A cyberattack last week that shut down a pipeline, which carries nearly half of the East Coast’s jet fuel and gasoline, raises the question for the zillionth time: When is the government going to start taking serious measures to prevent, or at least minimize, these debilitating—potentially catastrophic—incidents?

One possibly serious step is about to take place—the installment of a first-ever National Cyber Director, an official vested (at least on paper) with powers to order, coordinate, and enforce cybersecurity actions in the public and private sector.

It’s pathetic that this step has taken so long. As far back as 1984, a national-security directive, signed by President Ronald Reagan, warned that computer networks, which were just then emerging, were “highly susceptible to interception, unauthorized electronic access, and related forms of technical exploitation” by “terrorist groups and criminal elements.” In 1997, a commission appointed by President Bill Clinton sounded the alarms: “The capability to do harm…through information networks…is real; it is growing at an alarming rate; and we have little defense against it.”