US looks to keep critical sectors safe from cyberattacks

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Biden administration official says the government is undertaking a new effort to help electric utilities, water districts and other critical industries protect against potentially damaging cyberattacks.

“Our aim is to ensure that control systems serving 50,000 or more Americans have the core technology to detect and block malicious cyber activity," Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. "That’s it in a sentence. Clear, clean goal, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get there.”

The public-private partnership reflects the administration's concerns about the vulnerability of vital systems, including the electric grid and water treatment plants, to hacks that could cause catastrophic consequences to American life. Though there is a history of government working with utilities, officials believe the threat has increased as more utilities are connected to the Internet, and the Biden administration wants to make fast progress in protecting systems that control the utilities.

The administration, meanwhile, has grappled in its first 60 days with responses to two major cyber intrusions. In the first, Russian hackers snuck malicious code into a software update pushed out to thousands of government agencies and private companies. The second even more widespread hack affected Microsoft Exchange’s email program.

Microsoft created a one-click tool to fix the issue after the White House encouraged the company to find a simple method for cleaning up from the hack. As a result, the number of compromised systems fell from 100,000 to less than 10,000 and “it keeps dropping," Neuberger said.

She said one idea that was contemplated was whether Microsoft could push a patch to all compromised systems to effectively...