Biden Warns Putin About Ransomware Attacks

US President Joe Biden recently met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Notably, Biden disclosed that among other things, he warned Putin about the rising ransomware attacks on US companies.

Specifically, President Biden was talking about attacks orchestrated by Russians. According to the New York Times, President Biden stated,

I made it very clear to him that the United States expects when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil, even though it’s not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on who that is.

In addition, Biden revealed that US officials are looking into more direct responses to ransomware attacks. The FBI assistant special agent in charge of cyber investigations, Elvis Chan, also commented on this. Previously, Chan shared that the FBI is turning up the heat on cybercrime. As a result, the US agency has taken steps to be more aggressive in dealing with cybercrime.

This approach includes learning to remotely accessing networks and kicking out attackers. In fact, the FBI successfully employed the strategy recently. The strategy helped the agency recover part of the ransom paid to cybercrime group Darkside.

The criminal group demanded $5 million in BTC as ransom after attacking Colonial Pipeline’s critical infrastructure. However, the FBI was able to recover part of the ransom.

Among other strategies, Biden added that his administration will be adding new “consequences” for such attacks.

In a separate statement, the Kremlin shared that President Putin was equally committed to stamping out cybercrime. In fact, Russia stands ready to “jointly suppress criminal acts in the information space” with the US.