Biden administration preparing to sanction Russia for SolarWinds hacks and the poisoning of...
Source: Washington Post
Biden administration preparing to sanction Russia for SolarWinds hacks and the poisoning of an opposition leader
By
Ellen Nakashima
Feb. 23, 2021 at 11:41 a.m. EST
The Biden administration is preparing sanctions and other measures to punish Moscow for actions that go beyond the sprawling SolarWinds cyber espionage campaign to include a range of malign cyber activity and the near-fatal poisoning of a Russian opposition leader, said U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The administration is casting the SolarWinds operation, which hacked government agencies and private companies, as “indiscriminate” and potentially “disruptive.” That would allow officials to claim that the Russian hacking was not equivalent to the kind of espionage the U.S. also conducts, and to sanction those responsible for the operation.
Officials also are developing defensive measures aimed at making it harder for Russia and other sophisticated adversaries to compromise federal and private sector networks, said the officials, several of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Part of the administration’s response, too, will be an attribution statement stronger than the one the intelligence community released in January saying that Moscow “likely” was behind the SolarWinds operation. A White House official said last week that the Russian campaign hit nine U.S. government agencies and about 100 private companies.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-russia-sanctions-solarwinds-hacks/2021/02/23/b77039d6-71fa-11eb-85fa-e0ccb3660358_story.html
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