President Joe Biden, 78, has been pushed by Democrats and Republicans to respond to recent cyber attacks by unknown gangs allegedly operating somewhere in the Russian Federation. When Biden met with 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin at a Geneva summit June 16, both superpower leaders agreed to try to do something about ransomware attacks. Blackmailing companies to pay criminal gangs, the fact is that no one, not Biden, not Putin, not Chinese President Xi Jinping, have control over international criminal gangs. Yet the hue-and-cry from both parties in Washington is for Biden to lash out a Putin for not doing enough. When a new $70 million ransomware attack hit IT companies from REvil Russian-based cyber gang, the calls to punish the Kremlin grew louder . REvil was behind the $11 million JBS meatpacking hack that shut down parts of the U.S. meat industry.
Biden told the press today that the “will deliver” a message to Putin on what the U.S. intends to do about the ongoing cyber attacks from alleged Russian-based gangs. Unless U.S. intel agencies are willing to blame the Kremlin for the attacks, there’s little Putin or anyone else can do to stop a new breed of cyber pirates. If Biden thought he had the tools at his disposal to stop the attacks, he would do it and so would Putin, knowing the consequences to the Russian Federation. White officials meeting in the Situation Room today insist they have a plan to deal with cyber blackmail by renegade gangs. One thing that doesn’t help the rapid turnaround for new cyber attacks on the IT industry handling various network management software is giving in to cash demands. If the cyber gangs know that crime pays, that’s the worst thing companies or the governments can do to perpetuate the problem.
Biden and Putin haven’t yet set up work teams that can coordinate efforts to deal with cyber-crime, whether it originates in Russia or elsewhere. Washington lawmakers on both sides o the aisle have grown impatient with the lack of progress, even though Biden finished the Geneva summit only three weeks ago. Questions of whether Putinis really serious about dealing with cyber-criminals on Russian soil isn’t really known. What’s known for sure is that Putin isn’t happy with current U.S. war games with Ukraine, violating a red line for Putin about the involvement of NATO in Ukraine’s foreign affairs. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 43, has been pushing Putin to take more aggressive actions in Eastern Ukraine. Biden promised Putin at the Geneva summit that he’d de-escalate the Cold War rhetoric that’s hit U.S.-Russian relations with a wrecking ball.
Before boarding Marine One to Illinois, Biden was asked what he intends to do about recent Russian-based cyber attacks. Biden said he would deliver a “message to Putin on cyber,” Biden told the press. “I will deliver it to him,” Biden said, but deliver what? It’s not yet established that the Kremlin has anything to do with the latest rasonware attacks, targeting IT companies running network management software. Russian hackers breached the SolarWinds network management software March 19, exposing the Pentagon and many other government agencies, including Health and Human Services, to a data breach. While U.S. intel agencies blamed Russian hackers, they didn’t asked SolarWinds why it sold a network management softward that didn’t have adequate cyber security from foreign hacking. SolarWinds and other U.S. companies vulnerable to foreign hacks must take responsibility.
Biden told the press that he and Putin discussed a list of key infrastructure areas that should be off-limit to hackers. “I talked about the proposition that certain infrastructure should be off-limits to attack, period, by cyber or any other means,” Biden told reporters. “ I gave them [the Russians] a list, and I don’t have it in front of me, if I am no mistake, of 16 entities—16 defined as critical infrastructure, from the energy sector to our waters systems,” Biden said, obviously not something heeded by REvil or other Russian-based hackers. U.S. and Russian officials are not close to coordinating intel to chased cyber criminals from more ransomware attacks. Calling Putin to threaten more economic sanctions would be exactly the wrong approach, since its been tried and failed before. Coordinating efforts to hunt down cyber gangs is more difficult than tracking down international terror groups.
Accusing Putin of more Russian-based cyber attacks is bound to backfire, since Putin’s GRU and FSB security services tell him that America is a the root of cyber crime. Putin has no idea anymore than Biden about how Russian-based cyber gangs operate, leaving the U.S. vulnerable to attacks. If the U.S. remains vulnerable to cyber attacks, software makers that sell to the government must invest more in cyber security, not look to blame foreign actors for breaching their systems. If foreign actors, whether in Russia or not, continue to penetrate cyber security, it up to U.S. or foreign companies to do more to provide better levels of protection in the future. “All they d is to make insinuations,” Putin said, about Washington’s claims that the ransomware attacks originate in Russia. “What we need is expert consultations between us,” Putin said, open to creating a joint U.S.-Russian cyber security work group.
