President Joe Biden is meeting with the heads of Amazon, Apple, JPMorgan and several other large US companies Wednesday to talk about cybersecurity issues — after a series of high-profile hacks this year have left both business leaders and the US government reeling.
The list of CEOs headed to the White House includes Amazon’s Andy Jassy, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Apple’s Tim Cook and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, according to Reuters.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, IBM chief Arvind Krishna and Tom Fanning, the CEO of utility giant Southern Co, will also be present — as will executives from insurance companies including Travelers.
The tycoons will meet with top Biden administration cybersecurity officials like recently confirmed National Cybersecurity Director Chris Inglis, as well as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
The topics of discussion will reportedly include ransomware, critical infrastructure, supply chain security, cybersecurity education and data breach insurance policy.
The news comes after a raft of hacks this year that have left several US companies scrambling — including a T-Mobile data breach that affected 53 million customers, a hack of email accounts run by Microsoft that the US government says was a Chinese espionage operation, and an attack on the Colonial Pipeline that shut down operations and led the company to pay an $4.3 million ransom.
The White House frequently meets with tech companies over cybersecurity issues — but Wednesday’s event is unique in its inclusion of the insurance industry, three people familiar with the event told Reuters.
Insurance companies play an important part in covering damages associated with data breaches. Experts say that influencing the insurance market’s policies around cyberattacks could bring widespread improvements to cyber defense systems throughout the private industry.
“The increased use of cyber insurance over the last 10 years has been an unfortunate stimulant to ransomware gangs — it has encouraged more attacks as insured victims are often quite willing to rapidly pull the trigger on ransom payments knowing that they will be reimbursed by insurance,” Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman of the cybersecurity-focused think tank Silverado Policy Accelerator, told Reuters.
With Post wires
The post Biden meeting with CEOs of Amazon, Google, and more over cybersecurity appeared first on The News Amed.