The White House says President Joe Biden will address cyber attacks with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they meet later this month.
The White House press secretary Jen Psaki also said the Biden administration won’t take any options off the table when responding to the recent cyberattack on meat producer JBS, the world’s largest meat processor.
It’s thought that the JBS ransom-ware attack was carried out by cyber criminals likely operating out of Russia. That was also the case with the cyber attack that shut down the colonial gas pipeline last month.
Psaki acknowledged at the press briefing this week that cyber threats are on the rise.
“Obviously ransomware attacks, we’ve seen them increase over a period of time,” said Psaki. “It’s an increasing threat to the private sector and to our critical infrastructure and there are other countries, many of whom we will see when the president is in Europe, who have similar concerns, so we expect this to be an issue of discussion.”
Psaki was also asked if Biden thinks Putin could stop the attacks if he wanted to.She responded that the President certainly thinks Putin and the Russian government have a role to play.
The White House would not confirm whether or not JBS paid a ransom after the attack that shut down their operations in Australia and North America. JBS had most of their packing plants back online mid-week.
