Calling cyber threats “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges to the United States” and declaring a national emergency relating to those threats, on April 1, 2015, President Obama issued an Executive Order “Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activity.” The Executive Order is part of the U.S. Government’s effort to combat widespread cyber theft from the networks of public and private organizations. Former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander previously stated that these widespread cyber thefts “represent the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.”

The Executive Order Provides a Broad, Flexible Tool -

The Executive Order authorizes sanctions on individuals or entities that are responsible for, complicit in, or engage in malicious cyber-enabled activities originating or directed from abroad. The cyber-enabled activities must significantly threaten the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States. In addition, the cyber-enabled activities must have the purpose or effect of...