Biden 'not sure' Russia was behind massive hacking attack

Joe Biden said he was "not sure" about Russia's involvement in the massive ransom hacks against businesses. this The President stated during his visit to Michigan.

“We are not sure if they are Russians,” Biden said. — I received brief information on the plane. Now we think it's not the Russian government, although we're not sure."

He also said that he had not discussed the incident with Vladimir Putin. The attack came just weeks after the two presidents met in Geneva, during which they discussed cybersecurity and hacking, among other things.

“I have instructed the intelligence community to provide me with detailed information about what happened,” Biden said. “Tomorrow I will know more, and if this happened with the knowledge and / or under the influence of Russia, then I promised Putin that we would answer.”

The mass hacker attack became known the day before. Bloomberg, citing data from Huntress Labs, reported that attackers attacked companies that provide IT support to small and medium-sized businesses. In this way, they gained access to the computers of their clients and demanded a ransom.

Initially, the publication reported about 200 affected companies, but soon the number of victims was increased to at least a thousand.

“Based on requests from service providers asking us for help, as well as the comments we see in the discussion on Reddit, it is reasonable to conclude that this has the potential to impact thousands of small businesses,” John Hammond, an expert at Huntress Labs, told the publication.

Previously, he said that eight service providers were attacked, but now we are talking about more than 20 such companies.

ESET analyst Arie Goretsky claims that attacks have been identified in 11 countries. The Swedish grocery chain Coop, which has more than 800 stores, was hit hard. Most of them were unable to start work due to the fact that the attack led to the breakdown of cash registers, the agency notes, citing Coop spokeswoman Teresa Knapp.

Experts cite software developer Kaseya as a potential source of problems. The company has already advised its customers to disable its software due to a possible hacker attack. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has confirmed that Kaseya's clients have been attacked.

Allan Liska, Senior Cybersecurity Analyst at Recorded Future, believes that REvil, a group of Russian-speaking hackers, is behind the attacks. According to him, this is the third time in recent times that REvil has attacked Kaseya for the purpose of extortion. It is this group that is suspected of the recent attack on the largest meat producer in the US, the Brazilian JBS.