Apple CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday attended a cybersecurity meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden. Executives from other tech firms, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, also attended the meeting.
Bloomberg and CNBC report that business leaders in sectors ranging from tech to insurance committed billions of dollars to increased cybersecurity efforts at the White House meeting.
The commitments range from working toward new industry standards to supplying other businesses with stronger security tools and providing skills training to workers to fill the roughly 500,000 unfilled U.S. cybersecurity jobs. Biden recently signed an executive order requiring U.S. agencies to use two-factor authentication for logins, which can help prevent cyberattacks.
Apple pledged to increase security across its supply chain. Apple and its suppliers will work to adopt multi-factor authentication, security training, and incident response in an effort to improve security.
Google will invest $10 billion over five years to strengthen cybersecurity, and it has plans to train 100,000 Americans in technical fields through its Career Certificate Program.
Microsoft pledged $20 billion over five years to provide additional advanced security tools and plans to invest $150 million to aid government agencies in upgrading their security systems.
Meanwhile, IBM plans to train more than 150,000 people in cybersecurity skills across three years, and also announced a new data storage solution for critical infrastructure companies.
Amazon Web Services plans to give account holders free multi-factor authentication devices to improve security, the company will also offer Security Awareness Training.
Exiting the White House, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called the meeting “a very productive, collaborative discussion.”
“Hopefully we’ll continue to follow up and do a good job to protect our country from a really complex problem,” he said.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the event “brought together the right set of folks to have a good discussion.”
