The Biden administration on Thursday released a plan for improving the nation's cybersecurity by shifting the burden from individuals, small businesses, and local governments to federal agencies and major tech providers.
"We must rebalance the responsibility to defend cyberspace by shifting the burden for cybersecurity away from individuals, small businesses, and local governments, and onto the organizations that are most capable and best-positioned to reduce risks for all of us," the White House said in a press briefing.
The administration stressed that the problem demands a "more intentional, more coordinated, and more well-resourced approach to cyber defense," and that the U.S. faces a "complex threat environment, with state and non-state actors developing and executing novel campaigns to threaten our interests."
The plan calls for a combination of active federal efforts to defend critical infrastructure and "disrupt and dismantle threat actors" while also supporting the private sector's efforts to develop the country's digital ecosystem and investing in the research and development of new tools.
One specific change is that ransomware attacks will be classified as a threat to national security rather than just a criminal action, opening up the possibility of the federal government using its intelligence and defense capabilities to combat the practice.
“Our goal is to make malicious actors incapable of mounting sustained cyber-enabled campaigns that would threaten the national security or public safety of the United States,” the strategy document said
The Trump administration has issued its first warnings to online services that offer unofficial versions of popular drugs like the blockbuster obesity treatment Wegovy.
Parents of teenagers who died by suicide after interacting with AI chatbots are set to testify before Congress.
Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama says his new Cabinet will include an artificial intelligence “minister” in charge of fighting corruption. The AI, named Diella, will oversee public funding projects and combat corruption in public tenders. Diella was launched earlier this year as a virtual assistant on the government's public service platform. Corruption has been a persistent issue in Albania since 1990. Rama's Socialist Party won a fourth consecutive term in May. It aims to deliver EU membership for Albania in five years, but the opposition Democratic Party remains skeptical.
The Federal Trade Commission has launched an inquiry into several social media and artificial intelligence companies about the potential harms to children and teenagers who use their AI chatbots as companions.
Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
