Security News > 2021 > January > Analysts question viability of last-minute executive order from Trump on IaaS companies' foreign users
In one of former President Donald Trump's last acts in office, he signed an executive order that forces US cloud companies to keep track of any foreign customers.
The executive order also allows the Department of Commerce to block certain IaaS companies from providing services to known hackers, people known to have sold accounts to hackers, or people from countries that have been the source of many cloud-enabled cyberattacks.
The order forces cloud companies to keep the names, addresses, emails, national identification numbers, credit card numbers, phone numbers, IP addresses, and more information any time cloud services are used.
Multiple analysts questioned the timing of the executive order and slammed it for largely being ineffective in light of the struggles the government is facing in understanding the scope of the Solar Winds attack.
Dirk Schrader, global vice president at New Net Technologies questioned what companies would think when looking at an executive order like this considering all of them rely on customers abroad for significant parts of their business.
OneLogin global data protection officer Niamh Muldoon questioned the executive order because IaaS and other cloud-based product offerings have helped allow the global economy and society to keep moving forward during this pandemic.