President Joe Biden had some stern comments to make over the recent state-sponsored and criminal ransomware attacks, suggesting that if the US were to be involved in a ‘real shooting war,’ it would probably be over one of these cyberattacks.
The comments come after the recent REvil ransomware attack managed to cripple software vendor Kaseya, affecting 60 MSPs and about 1500 downstream customers.
Cyber attacks have been at the centre of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Biden in recent weeks. The events come at the heels of the Kremlin-backed supply chain attack on SolarWinds that hit several federal agencies and US Cybersecurity firms.
A disturbing prophecy
There were also major impacts on the Colonial Pipeline fuel distribution network, as well as meatpacker JBS. Biden addressed the US intelligence community saying the road to war with a major political and economic power would probably be due to a future cyber attack on the US.
Biden cited the recent attacks’ ability to cause damage and disruptions in the real world. He said he could guarantee, based on information the intelligence community has, that it is more likely the US could end up in a major war because of the exponentially increasing cyber threats.
Biden’s hot take
The president pointed to Russia’s poorly performing economy under Putin, whom he said has ‘a real problem’ that makes him dangerous. He said the Russian economy is sitting on nuclear weapons and oil wells and ‘nothing else.’ He cites this as cause for calling his Russian counterpart dangerous.
The US president also added that Russia’s alleged disinformation campaign targeting the 2022 US elections is a violation of ‘our sovereignty.’ Hopefully, the warnings he gave Putin last month about staying away from critical infrastructure will see results and the attacks will die down.
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