United States President Joe Biden’s administration is releasing a set of new requirements for America’s most secure networks, mandating the use of government-approved encryption.
The new order will ensure that officials need to report breaches to the National Security Agency (NSA.)
The requirements, laid out in a national security memorandum, require agencies such as the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Energy to implement baseline security measures for national security systems – networks where the most sensitive U.S. data is held.
Among the requirements: multi-factor authentication, or the use of multiple layers of passwords delivered via different services; NSA-approved encryption; and zero-trust architecture, an industry term for the continuous validation of users’ or devices’ identities.
The White House has made cybersecurity a priority after digital debacles including a cybercriminal shakedown effort that paralyzed gasoline deliveries to the East Coast last year and the discovery that allegedly Russian hackers had infiltrated several government agencies by riding on network-monitoring software made by the company SolarWinds.