Trump seeks to curb foreign cyber meddling on last day in office

By Alexandra Alper

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at his hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 28, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Outgoing President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at thwarting foreign use of cloud computing products for malicious cyber operations against the United States, the White House said on Tuesday, Trump's last full day in office.

 

The order, first reported by Reuters, gives the Commerce Department authority to write rules to bar transactions with foreigners in cloud computing products or services, if a foreigner uses them for cyber attacks. 

 

"What we have seen in this space is that...an individual will rent thousands of pieces of this infrastructure inside the United States and resell them to actors who then abuse them," a senior administration official told Reuters. "This provides the Secretary of Commerce the ability to say...'There is no reason for you to continue to have access to the nation’s products,'" the person added, noting the restrictions could apply to jurisdictions as well as people and companies.

 

The order also requires the agency to write rules in six months for U.S. providers of Infrastructure as a Service, a type of cloud computing, to verify the identity of foreigners with whom they do business and keep certain records.

 

U.S. officials have been working on the directive for nearly two years, the official said. But its unveiling will follow a massive hacking campaign which used U.S. tech company SolarWinds as a springboard to penetrate federal government networks. Senior U.S. officials and lawmakers have alleged Russia is to blame for the hacking spree, a charge the Kremlin denies.

 

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, who will take the oath of office on Wednesday, could easily revoke an executive order issued in the waning days of the Trump presidency. Biden's transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Howard Goller and Lincoln Feast.)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-20

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

Finally he does something right but will still go down in history as the worst President ever and with a very low approval rating , in debt owing millions of dollars .

An attack on his own Government at Capitol Hill will be his undoing and his Impeachment will find him guilty . 

I think that ship allready sailed 

A pair of off-topic trolling posts have been removed.

It only took him four years to learn that cyber-crimes are a problem.

 

Maybe it he'd been given four more years he would have figured out that Putin does not have America's best interests in mind.  Then again, maybe not.

trump left a letter, as it is the tradition, to his successor biden who labelled it as  "very generous"...

i wonder! has the trump we knew suddenly understood being the usa president isn't a reality show?

ok there is something called the benefit of the doubt. history will tell!