U.S. President Joe Biden is meeting today (August 25) with top executives from several of the largest American companies to discuss how to combat cybersecurity threats.
The event comes after the U.S. experienced several large cyberattacks that have added urgency to the public and private sectors in containing such threats. Those incidents include the attack on software firm SolarWinds that impacted several government agencies and the Colonial Oil Pipeline hack. The latter resulted in a gas shortage in some parts of the country.
Biden plans to meet with the chief executives from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), PG&E (NYSE:PG), and others to discuss ways to improve U.S. cybersecurity. Members from Biden’s cabinet and national security team will also join the meeting.
Biden’s office said concrete steps for beefing up cybersecurity practices would come out of today’s event. The aim is to address the “root causes” of cyberattacks, such as vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and 500,000 unfilled U.S. cybersecurity jobs.
The Biden administration has undertaken several moves to address cybersecurity threats. In May, Biden signed an executive order to strengthen government software security and streamline information sharing. He later issued a memo directing federal agencies to take action to improve cybersecurity for critical infrastructure.