Russian President Vladimir Putin contradicted the evidence Wednesday when he asserted Russians are not a leading source of cyberattacks on the United States and other countries. They are.
A glance at his case in the news conference that followed his culmination with President Joe Biden.
PUTIN: “From American sources, it follows that the greater part of the cyberattacks on the planet are carried out from the cyber realm of the United States. Second place is Canada. Then two Latin American countries. Afterward comes Great Britain. Russia isn’t on the rundown of countries from where — from the cyber space of which — the greater part of the different cyberattacks are carried out.”
THE FACTS: This depiction defies the record. Putin didn’t identify the source of the rundown he cited. However, Russian-based advanced malfeasance is well established by U.S. authorities and security researchers alike.
While the U.S., Canada and Britain all engage in cyberespionage, the most harming cyberattacks on record have come either from state-backed Russian hackers or Russian-speaking ransomware crooks who operate without any potential repercussions in Russia and allied countries.
In one such assault, the NotPetya infection accomplished more than $10 billion in economic damage in 2017, hitting companies including dispatching goliath Maersk, the pharmaceutical organization Merck and food organization Mondolez.
The cyberattacks that have recently done the most damage are from ransomware sowed and activated by Russian-speaking groups of hoodlums that enjoy safe harbor in Russia and allied countries and whose members have sometimes colluded with Russian security services.
The worldwide ransomware plague that has caused tens of billions of dollars of damage in the previous year and a half — hitting an organization, medical clinic, school or other target about every eight minutes — was a significant issue for Biden at the culmination.
Too, Russian intelligence operatives broadly interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by hacking Democratic email accounts and orchestrating the release of those correspondences to help the mission of Republican Donald Trump and mischief his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Russian military hackers additionally attacked and briefly shut down bits of Ukraine’s power matrix in the winters of 2015 and 2016.
Altogether, the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future estimates there were 65,000 successful ransomware assaults around the world in 2020 from all sources.
The May assault on the Colonial Pipeline, which prompted it to remove fuel supplies to the U.S. East Coast for five days, was the most spectacular in its effect on critical infrastructure and came after the Biden organization called ransomware a public safety threat exceeding cyberespionage
