Executive Order Amends Cybersecurity Policy

Action: On June 6, the President issued an Executive Order amending two previous Orders issued in April 2015 and January 2025 related to US cybersecurity. The 2015 Order, as amended in 2016 and 2021, authorizes sanctions to be applied to any person engaged in malicious cyber-enabled activities, including “tampering with, altering, or causing a misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions.” The new Order removes election interference as a sanctionable activity and limits the scope of the Order to “any foreign person.”

The new Order also, among other changes, eliminates provisions in the January 2025 order seeking to encourage the acceptance of digital identity documents for accessing public benefits programs and removes a requirement that Federal software vendors submit proof that their products comply with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF).

Trusted Insights for What's Ahead^®

• A White House fact sheet accompanying the new Order states that limiting the scope of sanctions for malicious cyber-enabled activities would prevent “misuse against domestic political opponents.” It also claims that the eliminated digital ID efforts would have facilitated entitlement fraud and other abuse.
• The Administration also argued that eliminating the attestation requirement for compliance with NIST’s SSDF would remove unnecessary burdens and allow Federal agencies greater discretion in making cybersecurity decisions.
• Some cybersecurity experts, however, criticized the Order, arguing that digital IDs have significant privacy and security benefits and that shifting to voluntary standards would make technical systems less secure.
• In addition, the elimination of sanctions targeting election interference are part of broader changes (e.g., the firing of cybersecurity experts working on election security) that some believe undermine election integrity.
• The President left unchanged a 2021 Order issued following a series of notable cyberattacks, including the Colonial Pipeline hack and SolarWinds, which facilitated sharing information about cyberattacks with Federal agencies and directed agencies to take certain steps to modernize Federal technical infrastructure.