WASHINGTON. «Red Line» on cyber attacks. Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin spoke for an hour on the phone yesterday. After the head of the White House assured that the interview went well: “I made it clear to him that when a ransomware operation is triggered from their soil, even if it is not sponsored by the country, we expect them to intervene, if we provide them with information on the authors », Biden said, flaunting« optimism ». In any case, “the United States is ready to take any action necessary to defend the people and the crucial infrastructure.”
The phone call took place in the aftermath of the latest ransomware attack (with a ransom demand) against the software company Kaseya, which impacted 1,500 companies and which experts (not the White House) have attributed to the “REvil” group that has based in Moscow. Biden spokesperson Jen Peski reiterated that there is no evidence on the Kremlin as a principal and is not out of balance on the possible answer. Last April, the United States imposed sanctions on Russia for hacking SolarWinds. “The president was keen to reiterate that ransomware attacks against the United States by criminal groups are not acceptable and reserves the right to respond.”
Moscow’s reply was not long in coming: «Given the scale and seriousness of the challenges in the field of cyber security, the interaction between Russia and the United States should be constant, professional and not politicized». A month after the Geneva summit that saw Biden hand over a list of 16 off-limits infrastructures to Putin, the topic of cyber-attacks remains hot but the two leaders underline the progress made on other fronts, starting with Syria, for the which the UN Security Council unanimously approved the extension of humanitarian aid.