Biden signs order on cybersecurity after pipeline hack upends gas market

President Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order intended to improve US cybersecurity after the hack of the Colonial Pipeline caused massive disruption to the US fuel market.

The order establishes a new multiagency Cybersecurity Safety Review Board to review incidents and mandates that federal systems log cybersecurity incidents and use multifactor authentication and stronger encryption.

The order also eliminates “any contractual barriers” to IT service provides informing the government of breaches and “requir[es] providers to share breach information that could impact Government networks,” according to a White House fact sheet.

The order also seeks to mandate new “baseline security standards for development of software sold to the government, including requiring developers to maintain greater visibility into their software and making security data publicly available,” the fact sheet says.

Although US government involvement with communications firms makes civil libertarians and some privacy-minded technologists uneasy, Biden administration officials insisted that the changes will benefit the public.