US President Donald Trump has issued a new cybersecurity-related Executive Order that supersedes or revises previous orders issued by Barack Obama in April 2015 (EO 13694) and Joe Biden in January 2021 (EO 14144).
Notably, the new order limits the application of cyber sanctions only to foreign malicious actors, reversing broader authorities under the previous Biden and Obama policies.
This decision was made in a move to “prevent misuse against domestic political opponents and clarify that sanctions do not apply to election-related activities,” said the White House press release, published on June 6.
The Trump order also removes a list of requirements from Biden’s January 2025 Executive Order (EO 14144), which included a mandate that would have required software vendors to prove compliance with new federal security standards, prioritized research and testing of AI for cyber defense and accelerated the rollout of encryption capable of withstanding future quantum computing threats – also known as post-quantum encryption (PQC).
“Just days before President Trump took office, the Biden Administration attempted to sneak problematic and distracting issues into cybersecurity policy,” the White House said about Biden’s EO in the press release.
Source: Info security Magazine