Biden Administration Prioritizes Cybersecurity Funding After Numerous Cyberattacks

Technology is progressing, so are the cyberattacks. Do you know that there is a new cyberattack every 39 seconds? Innocent people came across 2,200 attacks every single day. For every lock, there is always someone out there who is trying to break in or pick it. Cyberattacks are not what makes the cold war cold. As a strategic matter, they do not differ fundamentally from older tools of sabotage and espionage. 

These cyberattacks are evolving with the speed of light and will keep on evolving. Nearly 95% of all digital data breaches are due to human error. But will the tech giants let these cases evolve?

Are they acquiring appropriate measures to combat these counterfeits and unauthorized access? It’s high time for enterprises and financial infrastructures to invest a hefty amount for the enhancement of safety and security measures.

Organizations of all sizes deal with different sorts of people and data each day. Enhancement of cybersecurity measures is crucial because it protects all categories of data from unauthorized access and damages. 

“The Biden administration is coming up with a $100 billion investment plan as cybersecurity spending as permit receipts will be required to source from credible vendors. ”

Recent Cyberattacks Recap 

A single vulnerability is more than enough for a hacker to break into the system. The United States of America faced a series of attacks. Let’s have a quick look at all of them. 

A wide range of organizations were potentially compromised after the cyberattack on the Microsoft exchange. The cybercriminal utilized previously known vulnerabilities in the email software and some stolen passwords to access the targeted network. Microsoft claimed that the cybercriminals are state-sponsored.

Microsoft also affirmed that hackers were operating out of China.  While it was priorly considered that the number of hackers had been limited, it has since then reported the progressive utilization of sophisticated tactics. Hackers are piling up to benefit from the current public vulnerabilities before systems are patched. 

While talking of cyberattacks, let’s not forget talking about the SolarWinds attack. On 15th April 2021, the president of the United States Joe Biden signed an executive order staggering fresh sanctions on Russia over a pattern of malicious cyberattacks against the United States and allies, including the SolarWind Attack that occurred in December 2020, that has now formally attributed to Cosy Bear or Russian state-backed APT29. 

Talking of recent incidents, the colonial pipeline shut down its operations and notified federal agencies that it has fallen victim to a ransomware attack. This act was carried out by the cyber group called DarkSide and forced the company to shut down approximately 5,500 miles of pipeline, resulting in the disruption of almost half of the east coast fuel supply of the nation. 

The ransomware attack involves malware and that encrypts files, resulting in making the system inoperable. 

$2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan  

Considering these evolving cyberattacks, the Biden administration explains their recent cybersecurity spending, which involved a $2.3 trillion plan. That plan involves $20 billion in energy infrastructure investments for tribal, state, and local governments that are unforeseeable on cybersecurity modernization. 

The White House claimed that: 

“Modernization block grants will be specifically utilized for the enhancement of technology, energy, and security standards in the 21st century.  The eligibility of such grants will be fortuitous on such policies that require the installation of technology, which proves to be beneficial for the detection and inspection of malicious cyberattacks on operational and informational security networks, which was consistent with privacy protection.”

The plan of this infrastructure involves the investment of $200 billion, making services more reliable, secure, and affordable for the nation of America.

Prior, the Biden administration secured more than $1 billion in American Rescue Plan funding for the modernization of the cybersecurity infrastructure of the federal government.

Related stocks involve CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR), and FireEye (NASDAQ: FEYE). Biden signed an executive based on cybersecurity last week for the enhancement of cybersecurity protocols of the nation and modernizing the nation’s defenses.

The announcement came after the Colonial Pipeline breach encountered by RaaS group Darkside. 

My Opinion 

Businesses and infrastructures deal with different sorts of sensitive data and the protection of that data is crucial. Having said that, a hefty investment for the enhancement of cybersecurity protocols is mandatory for tech giants to dodge cybercriminals. I personally believe that the Biden step for the acquisition of $2T infrastructure is a splendid measure to keep in view progressing ransomware and cyberattacks that are occurring in a series. There is no doubt that cyberattacks are never going to stop but appropriate measures and solutions can be acquired to dodge them.

Cybercriminals are always crawling to find sophisticated tactics to have unauthorized access to the network. As a result, the network lost billions and trillions of dollars along with data breaches. Infrastructure from all across the globe must attain lessons from the $2T infrastructure plan of the United States of America and invest a hefty amount for the modernization of cybersecurity infrastructure.

There exists a vast range of products that provides real-time, reliable, and robust AI-powered identity verification that provides KYC/AML compliance, biometric authentication, face verification, OCR data extraction, document verification, age verification, and more. Hence infrastructures must not think twice when it comes to the enhancement of security protocols and must not compromise in that aspect at all.