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March 21, 2021
Biden administration to launch cyber attacks on Russia as feud with Putin escalates
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan – Reuters
The Biden administration is preparing a series of aggressive cyber attacks against Russia as part of a major shift in tactics designed as a wake-up call for rival powers.
The attack, which is expected within the next fortnight, is in retaliation for the SolarWinds hack, the large-scale infiltration of U.S. government agencies and corporations discovered late last year and traced back to the Kremlin.
It comes after Joe Biden this week engaged in a war of words with Vladimir Putin, calling the Russian president a “killer,” as the White Houses attacked China for rights violations in a tense opening to face talks. to face.
The United States will not target civilian structures or networks, but rather the hack is intended as a direct challenge to Mr. Putin, the President of Russia, and his cyber army, The telegraph understands.
The White House has confirmed it will take “a mix of actions” – both “seen and unseen” – although it has not provided details on when and how it will do so.
Such a move would mark a different tact taken by previous administrations, which have acted largely defensively against the Moscow cyberwarfare. Donald Trump has taken a much more cautious approach to Russia, being careful never to directly criticize or challenge the regime.
“I actually believe that a set of measures which are understood by Russians, but which may not be visible to the whole world, are in fact likely to be the most effective measures to clarify what states -United believe we are limited and off limits, and what we are prepared to do in response, ”said Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, New York Times this week.
Sullivan stressed that traditional sanctions alone do not increase the cost enough to force powers like Russia or China.
A high-level Russian government source said they anticipate the cyber attacks will take the form of a “large-scale information campaign” aimed at discrediting its coronavirus vaccine.
Russian officials are said to expect “fake news” about the effectiveness of its Sputnik-V vaccine, which is mainly targeted at European countries that have granted emergency shooting clearance such as Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was alarmed by this information. “It would be pure international cybercrime,” he told state media.
In his first real foray into foreign policy since taking office in January, Mr Biden announced this week that he would pursue an aggressive stance against America’s enemies.
A simmering feud with Moscow escalated this week when Mr. Biden called Mr. Putin a “killer,” promoting the pitted Russian president and his aides to label the new US commander-in-chief as old and senile.
American defenses in the Pacific American defenses in the Pacific Days earlier, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report on Russia’s attempt to interfere with the November election in favor of Mr. Trump.
“Biden will do something in the next few weeks that Trump never could – prepare for retaliation against Russia,” said Frank Figliuzzi, former deputy director of the FBI.
Russia and the United States had pledged to abide by so-called online trust-building measures that allowed countries to remain private about possible breaches, but the deal collapsed dramatically in 2016 when Russian hackers targeted the Democratic National Committee.
The United States then took an unprecedented step to name and share hackers linked to the Russian government, but that did not deter further attacks.
Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden have known each other for years - Reuters Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden have known each other for years – Reuters “There is a lot of confusion about how (the United States is going) to react because the old strategies of dealing with (Russia) no longer work,” Andrei Soldatov, a Russian cybercrime expert, told the Sunday Telegraph .
“The old containment strategies no longer work,” Soldatov added.
Brett Bruen, a former U.S. diplomat who served as director of global engagement at President Obama’s White House, said The telegraph: “Whether it is Russia or China, we are going to have to put teeth on the policies. There have been a lot of statements, we have to be ready to give weight to what we are doing”
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held talks with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi on Saturday to warn against buying Russian military equipment.
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