President Joe Biden signed an executive order last month intended to modernize and enhance the nation’s cyber-security defenses. While the order largely applies to federal agencies, its core message—that the public and private sectors must collectively defend against increasingly malicious cyber-attacks, including ransomware attacks—should not be lost on companies.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...