Joe Biden 'not sure' if Russia behind recent ransomware attacks; says 'we will respond'

US President Joe Biden on Saturday said that he “was not sure” whether Russia was behind the recent ransomware attacks that compromised cybersecurity of more than 1,000 companies and other managed-service providers up to the fourth of July. Speaking to the reporters from a cherry farm in Central Lake during a trip to Michigan on Saturday, the US president asserted that he “will respond” if the Russian President Vladimir Putin is somehow linked to these attacks, of which, the source currently remains unclear as an investigation led by US intelligence committee is underway. 

“I directed the full resources of the government to assist in the response if needed,” Biden said in his remarks aired July 3. Furthermore, he stressed, “We’re not sure if it is the Russians,” adding that he was briefed on the matter on board the plane and that the initial thinking was, it was not the Russian government but “we’re not sure yet.” 

Biden further stated that he had asked the intelligence community to give him “a deep dive” into what’s happened. “I’ll know better tomorrow and if it is either with the knowledge of and or a consequence of Russia, then I told Putin we will respond,” he stressed. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, meanwhile tweeted, that the US President Joe Biden had given his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a list of targets that were “off-limits to cyber attacks” at a meeting in Geneva, last month. This included at least 16 clear defined areas of US critical infrastructure under US policy, ranging across the energy sector to the water systems. 

“Remember when President Biden gave Putin a list of things that were supposed to be off-limits for cyber attacks? What he should have said is that all American targets are off-limits,” McCarthy wrote, hinting at the approach that he implied had proven “ineffective” with the series of latest cyberattacks on US companies. “Biden is soft on crime and weak against Putin,” McCarthy said, denouncing Joe Biden’s tackling of the Russians. 

House Minority Leader’s remarks come in the aftermath of ransomware attacks in dozens of House offices on Capitol Hill for constituent outreach services. As many as 60 House offices of both the Republicans and the Democrats were compromised and parties failed to retrieve the constituency information from the vendor iConstituent,  Punchbowl noted. “The Office of the Chief Administrative Officer was notified by iConstituent that their e-newsletter system was hit with a ransomware attack,” chief administrative officer of the House, Catherine Szpindor had announced in a statement, earlier last month. 

US had warned Russia it would 'respond' 

The United States had earlier warned that it would “respond to actions that impair our vital interests or those of our allies”.  After the meeting with his Russian counterpart, Biden had told reporters in his post-summit press conference, “This is about practical, straightforward, no-nonsense decisions. We’ll find out within the next six months to a year if we have had an actual strategic dialogue that works.”

In reference to the cyberattacks, the US President had stated, “We have the significant cyber capability and he [Putin] knows it, and if they [Russians] violate these basic norms we will respond,” Biden had said while boarding the Air Force One to return to the US. On the contrary, Biden’s Russian counterpart Putin had separately denied that Moscow had any role in the ransomware hacking in the US citing “no evidence” and instead blamed the US for a series of cyberattacks on Moscow.