The Biden administration is moving to treat ransomware attacks as a national security threat, using intelligence agencies to spy on foreign criminals and contemplating offensive cyber operations against hackers inside Russia, U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the matter said.
"Sometime at the end of last year, everyone decided that this had risen to the level of a threat to national security," said James Lewis, a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who consults frequently with government officials."While we won't comment on specific planned or ongoing operations, we provide options through the Department of Defense to the president," the Cyber Command spokesperson said.
Neuberger also said the U.S. government was seeking to "disrupt" ransomware networks. She didn't say how. The White House said Biden will tell Russian President Vladimir Putin at their summit June 16 that Russia must stop harboring criminal hackers. But Lewis and other experts don't expect Putin to cave in to U.S. demands.
Indictments by the Justice Department also serve a purpose, he said, by blocking the hackers from most travel and access to the U.S. financial system.
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