Foreign cyberattacks will make US policy more coercive

Significance

These sprints are part of a wider overhaul of national cybersecurity necessitated by the recently uncovered Russia-linked SolarWinds hack and the China-linked Microsoft Exchange hack. These are the two largest known attacks against the country.

Impacts

• Federal rules on government procurement of IT hardware and software will tighten, increasing compliance costs for private vendors.
• Several new ransomware and other cyberattacks linked to Microsoft Exchange servers are likely to surface in coming months and years.
• The SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange hacks will cost billions of dollars in insurance costs and additional cybersecurity investments.