The White House says US federal agencies generally resisted the cyber attack blamed on Kremlin operatives, adding that the intelligence campaign should not be allowed to further damage relations with Moscow ahead of a planned meeting between the two countries’ leaders. next month.
Officials tried to downplay the scale of the cyberattack, calling it a “basic attempt to steal information” during which hackers sent malicious code targeting the computer systems of several federal agencies, think tanks and humanitarian groups. Microsoft, which made the attack public Thursday night, said it believes the malicious emails were blocked by system protection settings.
The company said it had not dictated “evidence of any disturbing number of compromised organizations” as of Friday afternoon.
However, the announcement of a new cyber attack as the forthcoming Biden-Putin meeting approaches on June 16 makes even more critical the Biden administration’s efforts to respond to the Kremlin for its aggressive cyber activity that has so far not stopped despite sanctions or criminal charges.
“I do not believe it will become a new source of tension, because the tensions are still high,” said James Lewis, vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But this topic will undoubtedly be on the agenda of the meeting. “The president must set targets for the Russians, make it clear that the time has passed when their operatives did what they wanted.”
The Biden-Putin meeting comes as tensions between the two countries are high as a result of Russian interference in the US election and cyber penetration into a number of government agencies and private organizations by hackers thought to be acting on behalf of Russia. The US reacted last month by imposing sanctions on the Russians; The Kremlin vowed to respond.
