Reports that Russian hackers launched an extensive cyberattack on U.S. government systems won’t derail President Joe Biden’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said Friday.
“There’s been no changes to the summit. We’re going to move forward,” principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday. Biden is expected to meet with Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, in three weeks, amid increased tension between the two countries. And the ramped-up ill-will is due in part to Russians’ continued hacking.
In a phone call with the Russian leader last month, Biden said he broached the SolarWinds hack, which U.S. officials have attributed to a group tied to the Kremlin’s intelligence services. The Biden administration announced sanctions on Russian individuals and assets in response, what Biden called a “proportionate” response at the time. The president said he did not want “to kick off a cycle of escalation and conflict with Russia.”
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When Russia-based cybercriminals shuttered the largest petroleum pipeline between Texas and New York earlier this month, Biden said he would call on Putin to crack down on the perpetrators when the two meet.
Asked on Friday whether the White House is now concerned about escalation, Jean-Pierre said officials would continue to monitor the situation. She referred further questions to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a target of the latest cyberattack.
Microsoft announced late Thursday that the group of hackers said to be responsible for the SolarWinds attack had launched an effort targeting more than 3,000 government email accounts across more than 150 organizations around the globe involved in international development, as well as humanitarian and human rights work.
“These attacks appear to be a continuation of multiple efforts by Nobelium to target government agencies involved in foreign policy as part of intelligence gathering efforts,” Tom Burt, a Microsoft executive, wrote on Thursday night.
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The emails, styled to look authentic and sent to inboxes that regularly receive USAID communications, sought to lure readers with a message that “Donald Trump has published new emails on election fraud.”
Microsoft said some emails went out this week and warned that the attack might be continuing.
