Joe Biden’s upcoming response to the massive cyber attacks last week will be beyond the common set of sanctions. Ron Klain, the future head of White House staff said so on air of the Face the Nation, the CBS show, as quoted by Reuters.
“It’s not just sanctions. It’s steps and things we could do to degrade the capacity of foreign actors to engage in this sort of cyber attacks”, the official said.
The president-elect’s administration considers the introduction of financial sanctions and respective breaches of Russian cyber infrastructure, sources in Biden’s staff say.
The Kremlin denies any involvement in the hacking campaign conducted in the U.S.
Biden who is supposed to become the President of the United States on January 20 is most likely to get the support of both parties regarding the decisive response to hacker attacks, law enforcers said on Sunday.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney assessed the situation, claiming that the hacking campaign was “extraordinarily damaging”.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Russia for what is being described as the worst-ever cyber-espionage attack on the US government. “We can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” Mr. Pompeo said on Friday.
President Trump downplayed the attack’s severity – saying it was “under control” – and cast doubt on Russia’s role, hinting at Chinese involvement.
The hack, targeting software made by US firm SolarWinds, was found last week. However, it had been going on for months.
Among the US agencies targeted was the office that manages nuclear weapons. That government organization, the US energy department, said however that the arsenal’s security had not been compromised.
Several other organizations around the world, including in the UK, are understood to have been targeted by hackers using the same network management software.
Originally published at 112 international