Biden tells Putin US is ready with response to cyber attacks

US President Joe Biden told Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday that Washington will take “any necessary action” in response to cyber attacks against American infrastructure and companies.

Delivered in a call between the two leaders less than a month after their Geneva summit, the message made it clear the US government will be responding to the ransomware attack that hit American and global companies on July 4.

A White House official said there could be action in days.

“President Biden underscored the need for Russia to take action to disrupt ransomware groups operating in Russia and emphasised that he is committed to continued engagement on the broader threat posed by ransomware,” the White House spokesman said.

Mr Biden “reiterated [to Mr Putin] that the US will take any necessary action to defend its people and its critical infrastructure in the face of this continuing challenge”.

Mr Biden said he expected Russia to find the perpetrators.

“I made it very clear to [Mr Putin] that the United States expects, when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil, even though it’s not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on who that is,” Mr Biden said.

Asked if there would be any consequences from the American side, the US leader said: “Yes.”

Later, a senior White House official said the US would take a number of actions.

“We are not going to telegraph what those actions will be precisely.

“Some of them will be manifested and visible, some of them may not be, but we expect them to take place in the days and weeks ahead,” the official said.

Security and intelligence agencies believe the attack on July 4 was launched by a Russianlanguage group that calls itself REvil, an abbreviation of “ransomware evil”.

It hit hundreds of American businesses as well as Kaseya, an IT company based in Miami.

Security firm Huntress Labs said last week it believed REvil was to blame for a string of recent ransomware attacks.

Last month, the FBI blamed the group for paralysing the operations of meatpacking company JBS.

Despite Mr Biden’s statement on cyber attacks, he “commended the joint work of [the] respective teams following the US-Russia summit that led to the unanimous renewal of cross-border humanitarian assistance to Syria today in the UN Security Council”.

Mr Biden told Mr Putin Washington expected a Russian response to any cyber attack originating from within its borders