By Justin Katz
Mar 16, 2021
As more details have emerged about the breach into federal agencies involving SolarWinds Orion, senior administration officials and analysts have started calling the incident a supply chain attack. While the government continues to assess the scope and scale of that breach, the White House is now directing various executive departments to assess the risks in their respective supply chains.
The executive order calls for both 100-day immediate reviews of certain products such as semiconductors and high-capacity batteries as well as year-long sectoral supply chain reviews of the defense, health, transportation and agriculture industries, among others.
The administration has ordered a wide-ranging assessment of the risks to various supply chain. Analysts, former government officials and industry say a large workforce gap and problematic frameworks are among the threats cybersecurity poses to the country s supply chains.