Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday in an attempt to bolster US cybersecurity defenses, after a number of devastating hacks including the Colonial pipeline attack revealed vulnerabilities across business and government.

“Recent cybersecurity incidents… are a sobering reminder that US public and private sector entities increasingly face sophisticated malicious cyber activity from both nation-state actors and cyber criminals,” the White House said.

Under the order, federal agencies will be required to introduce multi-factor authentication to their systems and encrypt all data within six months in a bid to make it harder for hackers to penetrate their IT infrastructure.