US President Joe Biden, at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Geneva, said about Washington's capabilities to carry out "retaliatory" cyberattacks.
This was announced on CNN by the White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
According to him, Biden told Putin that if Moscow cannot stop hackers from the territory of the Russian Federation against the critical infrastructure of the United States, then he will be ready to use this potential to carry out his own attacks.
"I will not go into details now, but President Biden clearly indicated to President Putin our potential and his full readiness, if necessary, to use it, depending on the development of the situation," Sullivan said.
Commenting on this thesis, the general director of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, in an interview with RT, regarded the statement of Biden's adviser as an attempt to outline the notorious "red lines" for Moscow.
“After the Geneva summit, which triggered a wave of reproaches against Biden for his allegedly too soft rhetoric in communication with the Russian president, the American side is trying to correct the negative impression that has arisen in the United States from the negotiations, how to play back the situation, increasing the degree of rhetoric.
The White House wants to make it clear that the Russian president was allegedly put in a certain framework, ”Mukhin said.
Unanswered requests
Cybersecurity became one of the key topics during the Russian-American talks held in Geneva on June 16.
In his speech to reporters following the summit, Biden said that during the conversation with Putin there were no "any reservations and tension" between them, but, according to the American president, during the conversation he made it clear to the Russian president that the United States has significant cyber potential ...
“I pointed out to him that we have significant cyber potential, which he knows about - not specifically what we are talking about, but that it is significant, and also that if they (Russians. -
RT
) really violate these basic norms, we will respond with cybermen, ”Biden said.
Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin meet in Geneva
Reuters
© Kevin Lamarque
Biden also said that he presented his Russian colleague with a list of 16 infrastructure facilities, cyber attacks on which are "unacceptable."
The head of the White House explained that this is critical infrastructure: from the energy sector to water supply.
“I talked about the idea that attacks on certain critical infrastructure by cybernetic or any other means should be unacceptable - period,” Biden said.
In turn, Vladimir Putin, commenting on the topic of cybersecurity and the accusations of the American side in attacks by hackers, drew attention to the fact that, according to the US itself, most cyber attacks in the world are carried out precisely from the territory of the United States.
“From American sources ... it follows that the largest number of cyberattacks in the world are carried out from the US cyberspace.
In second place is Canada, then two Latin American countries, then Great Britain.
Russia is not included in this list of countries, from the territory from whose cyberspace the greatest number of cyber attacks of various kinds is carried out, ”Putin stressed.
As the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov later clarified, Putin's statement was based on information from the American analytical company LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
The firm's January-June 2020 cybercrime report lists the top ten states with the most hacker-initiated attacks.
The USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Great Britain, Germany, India, France, Japan and the Netherlands are named as the main sources of this kind of cyber threats.
In another rating of the company, which contains data on the number of automated attacks, Russia is in ninth place.
The leaders include the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Japan, Ireland, India, and Australia.
The Netherlands is in tenth place.
As Vladimir Putin noted during a press conference, in 2020 Moscow received ten requests from the United States regarding cyberattacks on American facilities, carried out, as it was calculated in Washington, from the territory of the Russian Federation.
Two requests were sent this year.
The overseas colleagues were given “exhaustive answers” to all questions, the president stressed.
"In turn, Russia sent 45 such requests to the corresponding structure of the United States last year, and 35 in the first half of this year. We have not received a single answer so far," Putin said.
According to the president, the Russian authorities are monitoring the sources of attacks on domestic information services and recording incidents when "this work is coordinated from US cyberspace."
American cyber troop officers
© US Army
Both presidents reported that at the end of the summit, an agreement was reached on cooperation in the field of cyber threats.
According to Vladimir Putin, it is necessary "to cast aside all innuendo, sit down at the expert level and start working in the interests of the United States and the Russian Federation."
Stream of accusations
Experts interviewed by RT note that overseas the topic of cyber threats is one of the main narratives in relations with Russia.
The American authorities, organizations and the media regularly accuse Moscow, including state authorities, of organizing attacks on information systems.
The loudest scandal erupted in 2016 over Moscow's alleged involvement in attacks on the servers of the Democratic Party, which later resulted in an investigation into "Russian interference" in the US presidential election.
Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations, offered to share data on the investigation of possible hacker attacks and start cooperation on this matter.
However, Washington has abandoned normal interaction.
In the summer of 2019, the US State Department rejected an official request from the Russian Federation to publish a correspondence on hacking one of the servers of the Democratic Party, the content of which, from the Russian point of view, was grossly distorted by Washington.
Nikolai Murashov, Deputy Director of the National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents (NKTsKI), told reporters about this.
According to him, Russia provided detailed answers to inquiries from the United States, but "this did not stop the flow of accusations."
“The story of hacking the resources of the Democratic Party of the United States, which set its teeth on edge, began to unfold when it was possible to extract political dividends from it.
In essence, this is an attempt to keep a good face in a bad game, ”- assessed the behavior of his American colleagues Murashov.
The latest accusations against Moscow, which were put forward by the American side, concerned alleged interference in the development of a vaccine against coronavirus, cyber attacks on US government departments using SolarWinds' Orion software and on the Colonial Pipeline pipeline company.
globallookpress.com
© Lisa Forster
In April 2021, in the annual report of the US intelligence community, Russia was named Washington's largest cyberspace threat.
In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry again rebuked the American special services for the lack of concrete evidence.
Cyberattacks allegedly committed by the Russian Federation became one of the topics in the interview of the Russian leader to the NBC TV channel on the eve of the Geneva summit.
Asked by reporter Cyrus Simmons about whether Moscow is waging a "cyber war against America," Putin said that discussing the incidents the United States is talking about is "talking about nothing."
From the president's point of view, the situation with the flow of accusations against Russia is turning into a farce.
“Where is the evidence that this was actually done?
- the Russian leader asked a rhetorical question.
- It's just a conversation about nothing.
Well, at least put something on the table so that we can look at it and somehow react to it.
But there is none of this ”.
Commenting on the situation, the executive director of the Russian Association of Cryptoeconomics, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain (RACIB) Alexander Brazhnikov noted: “Thank you to the Americans for advertising Russian hackers, who, however, for some reason still remain uncaught.
And I don't really understand why the Russian authorities should attack American technical systems.
For that matter, the United States has a cyber troop to fight it. "
As the interlocutor of RT said, accusing Moscow, "the Americans themselves are constantly trying to get in somewhere."
At the same time, according to Brazhnikov, Russia is one of the main targets of US cyberattacks and espionage by the intelligence community.
“The Americans are trying to spread the thesis as widely as possible about how everyone is attacking them, and they have nothing to do with it, although many cybercriminals are moving to the United States.
Such is the simple populist logic, ”says Brazhnikov.
The expert stated that in recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of cybercrimes in the world, and an effective fight against them requires close interstate cooperation.
But Brazhnikov doubts that the US authorities will agree to such a format of cooperation.
Alexey Mukhin adheres to a similar point of view.
The expert believes that the United States will continue its aggressive activities in cyberspace and will continue to represent Russia as guilty.
“The United States prefers to unilaterally declare some kind of activity against its infrastructure facilities, while they themselves are doing the same and are the absolute leaders in the number of hacker attacks. Washington needs such a policy in order to soften Russia's position on a number of important geopolitical issues and try to maintain a dominant position in the world, ”Mukhin summed up.