In an escalating standoff over Ukraine, US allies are prepared to strike back at Russia’s cyberattacks. The scope of the retaliation depends on the severity of the attacks, but officials from the US and Europe say they’re ready.
Biden says the US is ready to defend against future cyber attacks
U.S. president, Joe Biden, spoke to reporters just hours after Ukraine’s defense ministry and two banks were hacked and said that Washington is coordinating with allies and partners to defend against future cyber threats.
The signs for future attacks were there and the US and Europe believed that Russia was behind it. Though they want to stay anonymous, they’ve acknowledged that this was not unexpected.
Russia’s Federal Security Service did not immediately provide any feedback to Reuters.
One U.S official stated:
“The president has said we will respond to Russian actions short of a military invasion. But what is decided depends on the extent of the cyberattacks. There are so many ranges, it’s hard to go into specifics.”
One European diplomat has reportedly stated that cyber attacks have been a longstanding component of Russia’s strategy and that it had employed them in the past during military confrontations with Georgia and Ukraine.
International officials from the United States, Canada and Europe have a plan to impose a set of sanctions if Russian forces invaded Ukraine. However, there is no detailed plan for how to respond to cyberattacks.
One of the main reasons is because it can be difficult to pinpoint who was responsible for DDOS attacks, one of the officials said. This mainly comes about when there are many people involved in the attack. DDOS attacks work by directing a huge amount of data traffic from various sources at an online server. It is more likely that an aggressive attack will be met with a stronger response. Some countries, including France, are unwilling to publicly attribute the blame for cyber-attacks.
One cyber expert said that sanctions might not be the only response to such hacks. A possible response could involve physical or cyberattacks on servers involved. A lot of Russians have been blamed for cyberattacks in the past and will be added to sanctions blacklists, according to the officials.
Negotiations between US and European officials recently have been focused more on what sanctions might be imposed in the event of a physical invasion than what options might be available for hacking, according to one European official.
