Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, has signed an executive order for a full review of his country"s digital defenses. The wide-ranging order will introduce new policies aimed at stopping major cyber attacks from other countries as well as looking at how the government spends money on computers and other technologies.
Since becoming President, Trump has had meetings with tech industry leaders and plans to invite them to join the newly created American Technology Council, headed by former Microsoft CFO, Chris Liddell.
In the executive order, Trump pledged that he would “hold heads of executive departments and agencies … accountable for managing cyber security risk to their enterprise.” The order expands on what the Obama administration tried to build when the then-President commissioned efforts to improve cyber security of critical infrastructure such as power plants and water pumps.
Trump"s executive order will see a review carried out to determine the effects of a “prolonged power outage associated with a significant cyber incident,” and how it could be resolved. Furthermore, the Department of Defense"s cyber security will be scrutinized to see how it can address threats to its supply chain.