President-elect Joe Biden said the U.S. must rethink and innovate national defense against cybersecurity threats following the SolarWinds network monitoring software hack that hit multiple federal agencies, The Hill reported Monday.
Biden said at a recent press conference the Russian-linked breach poses a national security risk and highlights the need for the U.S. government to update approaches in the cyber domain.
“We need to close the gap between where our capabilities are now and where they need to be to better deter, detect, disrupt, and respond to these sorts of intrusions in the future,” Biden told reporters.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive on Dec. 13 instructing agencies to implement measures to address information security threats in federal information technology systems that use the SolarWinds Orion platform.
Customers of the Austin, Texas-based software company include the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the State Department and the Department of the Treasury (DoT), according to the report.
