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Joe Biden reportedly called a meeting for cybersecurity, and the CEOs of major tech companies have confirmed attendance. According to Reuters, Amazon’s Andy Jassy, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella will all be at the White House for the conference.
The POTUS is said to be hosting the summit on Wednesday, Aug. 25, and he is expected to discuss each company’s efforts on improving cybersecurity. The publication said that the source who shared this information asked not to be identified since the meeting has not been shared with the public yet.
It was added that chief executives of other large companies in the tech, banking, energy, and water utility fields, including Google, JP Morgan Chase, Southern Company, and International Business Machines Corp., were also invited by the U.S. president for the cybersecurity meeting.
The gathering is part of the POTUS’ national security memorandum that he announced last month. It was signed after a series of high-profile cyberattacks beset major companies as well as government agencies in the U.S. this year.
For instance, the Colonial Pipeline was hacked, and the attackers asked for ransom for its system to be restored. The incident affected health systems and municipalities in the country. There was also the massive SolarWinds hacking, and this is exactly why Biden is hosting the cybersecurity conference - to prevent incidents like this in the future.
At any rate, CNBC further reported that a source revealed IBM’s chief, Arvind Krishna, is also planning to be at the White House for the meeting on Wednesday. As for Google, it is not certain yet as to who from the company is attending.
Meanwhile, US senators Mark Warner, Marco Rubio, and Susan Collins have initiated a bill that will require companies in the private sector that are working with the government to disclose any hacking or cyber-attacks on their systems. It was said that the bill will also serve as protection to firms for possible negative effects from the reported breach, like, for example, being sued by the shareholders and using the shared details of the hack as proof.
