The meeting took place on Wednesday amid a wave of ransomware attacks that have targeted key infrastructure, with attackers extorting multimillion-dollar payments from large organisations in certain cases, as well as other illegal cyber operations traced to foreign hackers by US authorities.
Following President Joe Biden’s private meeting with top executives, the White House said that some of the country’s leading technology companies had pledged to investing billions of dollars to strengthen cybersecurity defences and train skilled workers.
The meeting took place on Wednesday amid a wave of ransomware attacks that have targeted key infrastructure, with attackers extorting multimillion-dollar payments from large organisations in certain cases, as well as other illegal cyber operations traced to foreign hackers by US authorities.
The Biden administration has urged the private sector to contribute to the strengthening of cybersecurity defences against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. Prior to the private meeting, Biden stated that cybersecurity is a “core national security challenge” for the United States.
U.S. President Biden said “The reality is most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,”
He added “I’ve invited you all here today because you have the power, the capacity and the responsibility, I believe, to raise the bar on cybersecurity.”
Following the meeting, the White House stated that Google would invest $10 billion in cybersecurity over the next five years, with the money going toward securing the software supply chain and expanding zero-trust programmes.
Meanwhile, Microsoft announced a $20 billion investment in cybersecurity over the next five years, as well as $150 million in technical services to help local governments in strengthening their defences. Over the next three years, IBM plans to train 150,000 staff in cybersecurity, while Apple announced a new programme to help strengthen the supply chain.