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Tech companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft have pledged to help bolster U.S. cybersecurity after a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday. Commitments vary by company, but range from spending billions on cyber infrastructure to offering supply chain support and education.
Wednesday’s high-profile meeting with tech CEOs follows major cyber attacks on U.S. government agencies and energy infrastructure like the Colonial Pipeline.
“The reality is that most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government cannot meet this challenge alone,” Biden said at Wednesday’s meeting.
Apple said it will work with its vendors to “drive mass adoption of multi-factor authentication” as well as provide new training in security, incident response and vulnerability remediation. Amazon plans to offer a multi-factor authentication device free of charge to all Amazon Web Services account holders and to make all security awareness training for company employees available to the public free of charge.
Google has said it will spend more than $ 10 billion over the next five years to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity and the software supply chain. Google has also pledged to train more than 100,000 Americans in data analytics and IT support through the company’s career certificate program. Microsoft has said it will invest $ 20 billion over five years, making promises similar to Google’s.
Wednesday’s meeting brought together Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, TIm Cook, CEO of Apple, Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM and Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, as well as representatives of other sectors such as energy and education.
