US Tech Giants To Spend Billions On National Cyber Security

President  Biden has held a high level meeting with the top US  technology business executives to address the core national security challenges the country faces and to deal with the immediate threat of ransomware. In response, the leading technolgy companies, including Apple, Amazon,  Google, IBM and Microsoft have promised to help national cyber security by committing to invest billions of dollars to strengthen  defenses and to train skilled workers.

The meeting  was held following a seemingly relentless period of ransomware attacks that have targeted critical infrastructure and major corporations and other illicit cyber operations that US authorities have linked to foreign hackers.

“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... Most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone.. 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.” Biden said at the start of the meeting. 

Biden recently signed an executive order requiring US agencies to use two-factor authentication for logins, which can help prevent cyber attacks.

The commitments range from working toward new industry standards to supplying other businesses with stronger security tools and providing skills training to workers to fill the roughly 500,000 unfilled US cyber security jobs.

Accoring to the White House these measure will include:- 

• Microsoft has committed $20 billion over five years to deliver more advanced security tools, CEO Satya Nadella tweeted after the meeting. 

• Microsoft would also  invest $150 million to help government agencies upgrade their security systems and expand cybersecurity training partnerships. Microsoft has spent $1 billion per year on cybersecurity since 2015.  

• Apple has said would create a program devoted to making security improvements across their technology supply chains, which will include working with suppliers to adopt multi factor authentication and security training.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing division of Amazon, is planning to give account holders free multi factor authentication devices to better secure their data. It’s also planning to offer “Security Awareness training” to organisations and individuals.

• Google has said it would invest more than $10 billion over five years to strengthen cyber security and pledged to train 100,000 Americans in technical fields such as IT support and data analytics through its Career Certificate program.

• Google’s financial commitment will also be used to strengthen the software supply chain and open-source security, among other things.

• IBM said it would train more than 150,000 people in cybersecurity skills in three years, while partnering with historically Black colleges and universities to help diversify the workforce. 

• IBM also announced a new data storage solution for critical infrastructure companies and said it’s working to create safe encryption methods for quantum computing.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told CNBC ahead of the meeting and outside the White House that cybersecurity is “the issue of the decade.” He said he hoped to see more coordination between the public and private sectors coming out of the meeting and said IBM would do its part to help skill workers in the space. 

Other announcements included an expansion of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA)   Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative to include natural gas pipelines. 

CNBC:      The Verge:       ITPro:        APNews:        Republic World:        Business Standard:     Techcrunch: 

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