Apple, Amazon, Microsoft CEOs To Discuss Cybersecurity At White House

The CEOs of some of the biggest technology players in the industry are to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House.

The meeting will reportedly discuss cybersecurity issues and will involve the leaders of Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM.

It comes after the Biden administration takes a much greater interest in cybersecurity matters, after a number of high profile incidents.

CEO meeting

Bloomberg on Monday reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will participate in a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday to discuss cybersecurity.

Bloomberg also reported that Alphabet’s and Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, has also been invited.

Reuters reported that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy will also be in attendance.

Meanwhile IBM CEO Arvind Krishna also plans to attend the meeting, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC.

There is no word on whether the invitation for Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has been lost in the post.

The White House first announced Wednesday’s meeting on cybersecurity in July, which Press Secretary Jen Psaki reportedly described as “a meeting with private sector leaders to discuss how we work together to collectively improve the nation’s cybersecurity.”

Shooting war

In July US President Joe Biden sent one of his strongest signals yet to his opposite numbers in Russia and China, over the issue of cyberattacks.

“I think it’s more than likely we’re going to end up, if we end up in a war – a real shooting war with a major power – it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach of great consequence and it’s increasing exponentially, the capabilities,” a video showed him saying during his half hour speech during his visit to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Microsoft was impacted by the SolarWinds hack late last year that also impacted many US government departments.

And a cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline caused widespread fuel shortages on the US Eastern seaboard.

Other ransomware attacks have targetted healthcare outlets and hospitals during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Russia, China

Biden’s rhetoric on cyberattacks reflect the growing seriousness with which the Biden administration views cyberattacks on American interests, particularly those emanating from groups in Russia and China.

In May British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab publicly warned Russia it cannot continue to shelter criminal gangs carrying out ransomware attacks on Western nations.

Russia in particular has been singled out by the west for cyberattacks stemming from either Russian government-linked hackers, or criminal gangs located in Russia.

This issue was raised during face-to-face talks between US President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in June.

Biden and Putin spent much of that face-to-face meeting talking about cybersecurity issues, with Biden warning Putin of ‘retaliation’ and an ‘aggressive response’ if Russia attacks a list of 16 ‘critical’ industries in America.

Soon after that, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) head Alexander Bortnikov said that Russia would work together with the United States to locate cyber criminals.