President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday meant to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity defenses in response to a series of headline-grabbing hacking incidents that highlight how vulnerable the country�s public and private sectors are to high-tech spies and criminals operating from half a world away.

The order will require all federal agencies to use basic cybersecurity measures, like multi-factor authentication, and require new security standards for software makers that contract with the federal government.

Officials are hoping to leverage the federal government�s massive spending power to make widely used software safer for the private sector as well.

�The federal government needs to make bold changes and significant investments in order to defend the vital institutions that underpin the American way of life,� Biden said in his executive order.

His actions come as the administration has been grappling with its response to a massive breach by Russia of federal agencies and ransomware attacks on private corporations.

Biden�s executive order was announced shortly after the nation�s largest fuel pipeline restarted operations Wednesday, days after it was forced to shut down by a gang of hackers. The disruption of Colonial Pipeline caused long lines at gas stations in the Southeast.

And the U.S. sanctioned the Kremlin last month for a hack of several federal government agencies, known as the SolarWinds breach, that officials have linked to a Russian intelligence unit and characterized as an intelligence-gathering operation. The AP previously reported that Russian hackers gained access to an email account belonging to the Trump administration�s acting homeland security secretary, Chad Wolf.

�The United States is simply not prepared to fend off state-sponsored or even criminal hackers intent on compromising our systems for profit or espionage,� Sen. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Warner praised the executive order but said Congress needs to do more to address the country�s vulnerabilities in cyberspace.

The order also creates a pilot program to develop a rating system, similar to how New York City requires restaurants to display letter grades that correspond to scores received from sanitary inspections, to show whether software and internet-connected devices were developed securely.

Biden�s order will also require IT service providers that contract with the federal government to share certain information about cyber breaches, an information-sharing program that officials say will improve the county�s cybersecurity as a whole.

The order also establishes a cybersecurity safety review board that�s tasked with studying major cyber incidents and coming up with concrete recommendations. It�s modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board. As a nod to how influential the private sector is in cybersecurity, the new board will be co-chaired by an official from the government and another from the private sector.

(AP)