Photo: Thomas Lefebvre / Unsplash
President Biden said Saturday that the “initial idea” is that the Russian government is not behind a ransomware attack directed against a tool provided by Miami-based information technology (IT) software management company Kaseya.
Biden ordered direct “all the resources of the federal government” to nvestigate the cyberattack against the Kaseya company and admitted that they are not yet sure who is behind that action.
“The initial idea was that it was not the Russian government, but we are still not sure,” Biden responded to journalists during a visit to Traverse City, Michigan.
The president pointed out that during the meeting he held last June with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, he anticipated that if Washington considers that government is responsible for actions like this, will respond.
Kaseya, a software company serving more than 20, 000 organizations around the world, confirmed this Saturday that its systems management platform, called VSA, suffered a “sophisticated” cyberattack, but estimated that it affected a “very small number” of users.
The firm reiterated the call to its clients to immediately shut down their servers “until further notice” and noted that they will do the same with their serving servers.
On a later note, Kaseya pointed out that they are already working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on what happened.
# FBI Statement on Kaseya Ransomware Attack https: // t. co / EHuplZdgAZ pic.twitter.com/YcbmxdPQRJ
– FBI (@FBI) July 3, 2021
In a statement that appeared on the Reddit website, the cybersecurity company Huntress Labs indicated that “more than 1, 000 businesses ”had been affected by the attack.
US media indicated that a supermarket chain in Sweden announced to its customers that their stores were temporarily closed after one of their technology providers suffered an attack that affected the operation of their cash registers. Also a railway and a chain of pharmacies in that country were affected, according to press reports.
The July 4 weekend attack follows a series of high-profile ransomware attacks like the one by JBS and a previous attack on Colonial Pipeline that was even more disturbing because it created fuel shortages in parts of the United States.
With information from agencies