US President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that damage to US businesses in the biggest ransomware attack on record appears minimal, although information remained incomplete.
The company whose software was exploited said that fewer than 1,500 businesses worldwide appeared compromised, but cybersecurity experts cautioned that the incident is not over.
A security researcher who chatted online with representatives of the Russia-linked REvil gang behind the attack said they claimed to have stolen data from hundreds of companies, but offered no evidence.
Photo: Reuters
Answering a reporter’s question at a COVID-19 vaccine-related White House event, Biden said his national security team had updated him on Tuesday morning on the attack, which exploited a powerful remote-management tool run by Miami-based software company Kaseya in what is known as a supply chain attack.
“It appears to have caused minimal damage to US businesses, but we’re still gathering information, and I’m going to have more to say about this in the next several days,” Biden said.
An official at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, speaking on condition that they not be further identified, said no federal agencies or critical infrastructure appeared to have been affected.
Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris were yesterday to lead an interagency meeting to discuss the administration’s efforts to counter ransomware.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki held out the prospect of retaliatory action.
What Biden last month told Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, still holds, she said.
“If the Russian government cannot or will not take action against criminal actors residing in Russia, we will take action or reserve the right to take action on our own,” Psaki said.
What sort of action that would be is unclear.
Biden has repeatedly said that the Kremlin bears responsibility for giving ransomware criminals safe harbor, even if it is not directly involved. There is no indication that Putin has moved against the gangs.
Psaki said Russian and US representatives were meeting next week and would discuss the matter.
Further underscoring the geopolitical stakes in cyberspace, the Republican National Committee on Tuesday said that it had been informed over the weekend that one of its contractors had been breached, although it was not immediately clear by whom.
The committee said no data were accessed.
The contractor, Synnex, said separately that the action “could potentially be in connection with the recent cybersecurity attacks of Managed Service Providers,” a likely reference to the breaches last week.
Friday’s attack hobbled businesses in at least 17 countries.
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