Obama Signs Order to Sanction Foreign Cyber Attackers
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The White House(WASHINGTON) — Declaring cyber-attacks against the U.S. a “national emergency,” President Obama Wednesday announced the first-ever sanctions program designed specifically to go after foreign hackers.
In an executive order signed Wednesday and released by the White House, Obama said that cyber-attacks originating from outside the country “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
The order calls for a sanctions program not unlike those used in counter-proliferation or counter-terrorism programs that can target “individuals or entities that engage in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities” that harm the U.S. — including attacks on critical infrastructure, denial of service attacks or cyber espionage, according to the White House.
“This new executive order is specifically designed to be used to go after the most significant malicious cyber actors we face,” Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, wrote on the White House website. “It is not a tool that we will use every day.”
Some cyber security experts have long lobbied for sanctions to be added to America’s tools to counter prolific cyber-attacks — in addition to public condemnation and the filing of criminal charges.
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