US President Joe Biden plans to issue a new executive order in the coming days to strengthen cybersecurity for federal agencies and contractors.
The move is intended to address recurring cyberattacks linked to Chinese hackers and cybercrime groups, according to a draft of the order cited by Reuters.
The order comes as Biden’s presidency draws to a close, and in the wake of several high-profile cyberattacks on US critical infrastructure, government emails, telecommunications companies, and the Treasury Department. While the US government and cybersecurity experts blame China for these hacks, Beijing denies these accusations.
The proposal calls for stricter rules on secure software development and a way to ensure those rules are followed. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) will assess compliance through its software certification program.
The draft stipulates that sellers who fail to meet the standards may face legal action from the public prosecutor.
It also requires creating guidelines to better manage access tokens and encryption keys used by cloud services. China-linked hackers used this method to access the email accounts of senior US officials in May 2023, according to Microsoft.