What you need to do NOW to protect against possible cyberattacks

On Monday, the White House issued a statement regarding potential Russian cyberattacks against the U.S., in connection with the Russian-Ukraine war. The statement was issued by President Biden and implied a heightened warning to Americans that cyberattacks may be imminent, without providing confirming information.

Following the statement is a Fact Sheet on steps to take. For the average home computer user, we’d recommend changing passwords on your accounts – all of them – especially banks and credit cards – do a computer backup on an external hard drive – write down all your passwords in a secure location. Don’t forget your cell phone – make sure you have icloud backup, shut down your phone (many of us never do this) and let it fully start up again. Go through your apps that you don’t use and delete them. Remember to change your passwords on apps that handle money such as Venmo, your bank’s app, etc. Don’t forget Facebook and social media. This will all take some time, but like spring cleaning, you’ll feel good about it once it’s done.

The statement noted this is a critical moment to accelerate our work to improve domestic cybersecurity and bolster our national resilience. Previous warnings have been issued about the potential that Russia could conduct malicious cyber activity against the United States, all part of their playbook.

The federal government has worked to strengthen national cyber defenses, mandating extensive cybersecurity measures for the government and critical infrastructure sectors. They’ve created innovative public-private partnerships and initiatives to enhance cybersecurity, and partnered with Congress.

Saying the federal government can’t protect against all threats alone, the statement issued noted that most of America’s critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector and critical infrastructure owners and operators must accelerate efforts to lock their digital doors.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been actively working with organizations across critical infrastructure to rapidly share information and mitigation guidance to help protect their systems and networks

The government urges its private sector partners to harden your cyber defenses immediately, noting that they need everyone to do their part to meet one of the defining threats of our time — your vigilance and urgency today can prevent or mitigate attacks tomorrow.

FACT SHEET: Act Now to Protect Against Potential Cyberattacks

The U.S. Government will continue our efforts to provide resources and tools to the private sector, including via CISA’s Shields-Up campaign and we will do everything in our power to defend the Nation and respond to cyberattacks. But the reality is that much of the Nation’s critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector and the private sector must act to protect the critical services on which all Americans rely.

We urge companies to execute the following steps with urgency:

• Mandate the use of multi-factor authentication on your systems to make it harder for attackers to get onto your system;
• Deploy modern security tools on your computers and devices to continuously look for and mitigate threats;
• Check with your cybersecurity professionals to make sure that your systems are patched and protected against all known vulnerabilities, and change passwords across your networks so that previously stolen credentials are useless to malicious actors;
• Back up your data and ensure you have offline backups beyond the reach of malicious actors;
• Run exercises and drill your emergency plans so that you are prepared to respond quickly to minimize the impact of any attack;
• Encrypt your data so it cannot be used if it is stolen;
• Educate your employees to common tactics that attackers will use over email or through websites, and encourage them to report if their computers or phones have shown unusual behavior, such as unusual crashes or operating very slowly; and
• Engage proactively with your local FBI field office or CISA Regional Office to establish relationships in advance of any cyber incidents. Please encourage your IT and Security leadership to visit the websites of CISA and the FBI where they will find technical information and other useful resources.

We also must focus on bolstering America’s cybersecurity over the long term. We encourage technology and software companies to: 

• Build security into your products from the ground up — “bake it in, don’t bolt it on” — to protect both your intellectual property and your customers’ privacy.
• Develop software only on a system that is highly secure and accessible only to those actually working on a particular project.  This will make it much harder for an intruder to jump from system to system and compromise a product or steal your intellectual property.
• Use modern tools to check for known and potential vulnerabilities. Developers can fix most software vulnerabilities — if they know about them.  There are automated tools that can review code and find most coding errors before software ships, and before a malicious actor takes advantage of them. 
• Software developers are responsible for all code used in their products, including open source code. Most software is built using many different components and libraries, much of which is open source.  Make sure developers know the provenance (i.e., origin) of components they are using and have a “software bill of materials” in case one of those components is later found to have a vulnerability so you can rapidly correct it. 
• Implement the security practices mandated in the President’s Executive Order, Improving our Nation’s Cybersecurity. Pursuant to that EO, all software the U.S. government purchases is now required to meet security standards in how it is built and deployed. We encourage you to follow those practices more broadly.