President Barack Obama has released a notice to extend for another year the national emergency he declared in April 2015 through an executive order to address the rising incidents of cyber attacks launched by threat actors overseas.
“These significant malicious cyber-enabled activities continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,†Obama said in a statement issued Tuesday.
The president added that corresponding measures that took effect in 2015 to address such cyber threats will continue to be implemented as part of the national emergency.
The national emergency continuation comes amid the Justice Department’s efforts to put on trial several foreign individuals allegedly involved in various forms of cyber attacks.
In March, a federal grand jury in New York indicted seven Iranian citizens on charges related to their roles in launching distributed denial-of-service attacks on U.S. financial services institutions from December 2012 to September 2013.
A Chinese national also pleaded guilty in March for his involvement in a conspiracy to hack U.S. defense contractors’ computer networks in order to steal military technical data on fighter jets and transport aircraft and send the stolen information to China for financial gain.
