The US Government Is Asking Big Tech to Promise Better Cybersecurity

The Biden administration is asking the world’s largest technology companies to publicly commit to tightening the digital security of their software and cloud services.

The voluntary pledge, first reported by WIRED, represents the latest effort by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to build support for its Secure by Design initiative, which encourages tech vendors to prioritize cybersecurity while developing and configuring their products.

By signing the pledge, companies promise to make a “good-faith effort” to implement seven critical cybersecurity improvements, ranging from soliciting reports of vulnerabilities in their products to expanding the use of multi-factor authentication, a technology that adds an extra login step to the traditional password.

The pledge—which CISA plans to announce at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco next week—poses a major test for CISA, which last week marked the one-year anniversary of its Secure by Design campaign. The initiative is a top priority of CISA’s leadership, but it has produced mixed results, with some companies continuing to flout its urgent advice. The tech industry’s reaction to the pledge—and especially the number of software giants that sign it—will serve as a litmus test for how the private sector views CISA’s continuing push for increased corporate investment in cybersecurity.

“We're really excited about the companies that are on board,” Eric Goldstein, CISA’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity, tells WIRED. He declined to say how many vendors have already signed the pledge, but he says they include some “really significant” players in the tech industry.

WIRED asked more than three dozen of the biggest software companies whether they had signed or planned to sign the pledge. Only a handful responded. Login technology provider Okta said it had signed, while security vendor BlackBerry said it was considering doing so. Notably, software giants Amazon, Google, and Microsoft did not say whether they were signing.

“CISA says they have 50 companies that are signing and giving quotations to put on the website,” says a tech industry