Biden to tackle cybersecurity with tech, finance leaders

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is meeting with top executives from some of the country’s leading technology companies and financial institutions as the White House urges the private sector to help toughen cybersecurity defenses against increasingly sophisticated attacks. Wednesday’s summit comes during a relentless stretch of ransomware attacks that have targeted critical infrastructure, in some cases extorting multi-million-dollar payments from major corporations, as well as other illicit cyber operations that U.S. authorities have linked to foreign hackers. Though ransomware is one focus of Wednesday’s gathering, a senior administration official said the purpose of the meeting is broader and centered at identifying the “root causes of malicious cyber activities.”