Cook, Nadella, Jassy to meet Biden over cybersecurity: Report

Washington, Aug 24 : Top tech honchos like Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO and Chairman Satya Nadella and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy are set to meet US President Joe Biden on August 25 to make him familiar with how they are addressing the growing cyber threats in the wake of recent data breaches.

According to a Bloomberg report, Joe Biden plans to host a meeting on Wednesday to discuss how companies are improving cybersecurity.

"The executives could discuss efforts undertaken by critical infrastructure entities, including those in the banking, energy and water utility sectors, to improve cybersecurity and collaborations with the government," the report said on Tuesday.

Google, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and the energy firm Southern Company have also been invited.

The tech companies declined to comment on the report.

The cybersecurity meeting comes in the wake of several incidents like the massive Solarwinds hack, the Kaseya ransomware attack and the Colonial Pipeline shutdown resulting from a cyber-attack.

Alarmed at repeated cyber attacks on the country, Biden in May signed an executive order, implementing new policies to improve national cybersecurity.

Admitting that the US is facing persistent and increasingly sophisticated malicious cyber campaigns that threaten the public sector, the private sector, and ultimately the American people's security and privacy, Biden said that the government must improve its efforts to identify, deter, protect against, detect, and respond to these actions and actors.

"Protecting our nation from malicious cyber actors requires the Federal Government to partner with the private sector. The private sector must adapt to the continuously changing threat environment, ensure its products are built and operate securely, and partner with the Federal Government to foster a more secure cyberspace," he wrote in the executive order.

The executive order was passed after the Colonial Pipeline Company, which is the largest refined-products pipeline in the country, was forced to shut down due to a cybersecurity attack on May 7.

Since February, the Biden administration has been working to remediate the SolarWinds attack and change federal IT practices to protect against similar attacks in the future.