On Friday, Donald Trump released his administration’s long-awaited National Cyber Strategy and signed an executive order to combat cybercrime, including fraud, extortion, and phishing schemes targeting American residents, businesses, and critical infrastructure.

The document, titled “President Trump’s Cyber Strategy for America,” outlines Trump’s priorities “for ensuring that America remains unrivaled in cyberspace.”

The five-page document explains the administration’s vision in “Six Policy Pillars”. Each pillar outlines the vision at a high level and discusses implementation and measures for success.

For example, the “Shape Adversary Behavior” pillar says the administration “will deploy the full suite of US government defensive and offensive cyber operations”. The strategy calls for detecting and disrupting adversary networks before they breach US systems, with the document adding: “we will work together to create real risk for adversaries who seek to harm us, and impose consequences on those who do act against us.”

The “Sustain Superiority in Critical and Emerging Technologies” pillar says that the administration will secure the AI technology stack and promote innovation in AI security. It will also ensure that AI advances innovation and global stability.

Other pillars include “Promote Common Sense Regulation”, “Modernize and Secure Federal Government Networks”, “Secure Critical Infrastructure”, and “Build Talent and Capacity”.

The strategy also suggests that the Trump administration will take a more aggressive approach to cyberattacks.

“Our resolve is absolute. We will act swiftly, deliberately, and proactively to disable cyber threats to America. We will not confine our responses to the ‘cyber’ realm,” the document says.

On the same day, Trump signed an executive order that directed relevant officials to review which tools could be improved to combat transnational criminal organizations behind malicious cyber schemes and scam centers. The order directed the Attorney General to prioritize prosecutions of cyber-enabled fraud and scam schemes, focusing on the most serious and provable offenses.

It also directed the Attorney General to submit a recommendation on how to return seized or forfeited funds to victims.

Brian Long, CEO and Co-Founder of Adaptive Security, shared how the order might transform the US cybersecurity landscape.

“This executive order is an important step because it reflects the scale and sophistication of the threat. Most breaches still start with social engineering, where someone is convinced to move money, share credentials, or approve a request they believe is legitimate. Companies need stronger verification processes and better training for employees operating in a world where impersonation is becoming easier and harder to detect,” Long said.

He also highlighted how AI plays a big part in enormous cybercrime losses that residents and businesses suffer each year.

“The scale of cybercrime today is enormous. The FBI reported $16.6 billion in cybercrime losses last year, and AI is making it easier for criminal groups to use deepfake audio, video, and other impersonation tactics to run fraud at a much greater scale,” Long added.

“With just a few seconds of audio or a handful of public data points, criminals can generate convincing voice clones, deepfake videos, and highly personalized messages.”

Long further described how the nature of cybercrime itself is changing, as sophisticated tools can now enable threat actors to carry out attacks much quicker than before – and far more convincingly.

“What used to take a skilled attacker can now be done quickly with open-source models and publicly available information. That gives criminals a cheap way to impersonate executives, banks, or family members with a level of realism that is getting harder for people to detect.”

“These attacks are also moving beyond email. We’re seeing more of them happen over phone calls, text messages, and video, where people are more likely to trust what they’re hearing or seeing and where many organizations still have fewer controls.”

In 2024, American consumers lost more than $12.5 billion to cyber-enabled fraud. Seniors are on average the most likely to fall victim to such attacks: 87% of seniors view online scams as a serious problem. In general, 73% of US adults have experienced some kind of online scam or attack, the White House said.

It added that in cases of sextortion, one in seven young people who experienced it reported harming themselves as a result. A lack of regulation and real consequences has allowed criminal networks to thrive, the release said.

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