Washington and Moscow have long denied any malicious cyberbullying against each other, but US Director of Cyber Administration Paul Nakasone confirmed last week in an interview with Sky News that the cyberclinic department in “a range of companies across the spectrum”. including those of both “aggressive” and “defensive” nature, as well as “intelligence operations” in support of Ukraine as it struggles to repel a Russian invasion that began in February. Days after the remarks by a senior US military official, the Russian president’s special envoy for information security cooperation, Andrei Krutschich, accused the United States of “launching a cyber attack on Russia and its allies” in an interview. Kommersant newspaper. Asked by Newsweek for comments on the nature of Moscow’s possible response, the Russian Foreign Ministry shared a statement attributed to Krutskikh in which he stated that “rest assured, Russia will not leave any offensive action unanswered.” Krutskikh, who also serves as director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s International Information Security Department, said the “how” and “where” remains to be seen, but said “all our steps will be measured and targeted in accordance with the law.” us and INTERNATIONAL LAW. “ And although the lack of international co-operation left a potentially dangerous gray area in the assessment of cyber warfare, Krutskikh argued that the Biden government was clearly violating international law when it came to Washington’s support for Kyiv. Moscow has repeatedly denied allegations that it interfered in US electoral security, but its cyber activities have been described as a national security priority by Washington. Above, Marines and Sailors monitor the activity of the network during an exercise at Marine Corps Air Force Base Miramar in San Diego, California, on August 22, 2016. I Marine Expeditionary Force “Government institutions, critical and social infrastructure, the storage of personal data of our citizens and foreigners living in Russia are affected,” Krutschich said. “Officials in the United States and Ukraine are taking responsibility for the sabotage. There they categorically refuse to develop international legal institutions. They do not seem to be fully aware of the danger of such aggression and encouragement of information security gangsterism.” He went on to list what he described as evidence of such activities against Russia, which mainly involve denial of service or DDoS attacks, using foreign servers based in the United States and Germany. Last month, he said, “more than 65,000” armchair hackers “from the US, Turkey, Georgia and EU countries regularly participated in coordinated DDoS attacks on our country’s vital information infrastructure, including Rutube video hosting.” And “a total of 22 hacker groups are involved in illegal operations against Russia,” Krutskikh claimed. He also accused the United States of loosening its rules for conducting offensive operations against Russia, calling it “worrying that Washington is deliberately lowering the threshold for the militant use of ICT.” Left unchallenged, he warned of possible consequences in the real world, including a clear skirmish between the world’s two leading nuclear powers. “The militarization of the intelligence space by the West and the efforts to turn it into an arena of transnational confrontation have significantly increased the threat of an immediate military conflict with unpredictable consequences,” Krutschich said. “Once again, I want to reiterate to those who do not immediately understand: the uncontrolled distribution of ‘virtual weapons’ and the encouragement of their use will not do any good.” The Biden administration has acknowledged the provision of cyber-support to Ukraine and its European allies who share concerns about Russia’s cyber-activities, although the extent of this support remains unclear. The US Cyber Administration last month announced its first “forward hunt” operation along with Lithuania, a NATO member bordering Russia in the Baltic region. Such operations are part of a broader “forward defense” strategy through which the United States takes precautionary measures to gather information about rival companies in cyberspace. In a statement to Newsweek, a State Department spokesman said: “There is a long-standing US position to work to curb cyberbullying and misinformation and to defend the United States and its allies and partners around the world. a series of threats “. “The United States is working with countries around the world to promote cyber-stability and reduce the risk of conflict,” he said. “Under the leadership of the United States, UN member states have repeatedly met to support a framework for responsible government behavior in cyberspace, which affirms the application of international law in cyberspace, sets out 11 voluntary rules of responsible state conduct in peacetime, and calls for practical creating confidence-building measures to reduce the risk of collisions arising from cyber incidents “. Moscow has also long sought a standardization of traffic rules for cyber activity, such as internationally approved maritime traffic protocols and nuclear weapons. The first appearance of the issue at the United Nations came in the form of a Russian draft resolution in 1998, and while some non-binding principles have been adopted, no treaty has ever borne fruit. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave priority to the issue in September 2020, when he presented a four-point proposal to regulate US-Russia interactions on cyber security. The plan would be to revive a “regular high-level bilateral inter-service dialogue” on cybersecurity, the “continuous and efficient operation of existing communication channels” to address nuclear risk reduction and computer readiness, and the joint development of ” a bilateral intergovernmental agreement to prevent information incidents “that reflects previous US-Soviet maritime agreements and, finally,” guarantees of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs “. Biden and Putin took the opportunity to discuss the issue in person during their meeting a year ago during their summit in Geneva. However, no mutually agreed framework emerged and the outbreak of Russia’s war in Ukraine further buried the issue. Echoing Krutskikh’s concerns, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, told Russian television show Bolshaya Igra on Wednesday that “for the time being, I see no prospect of resuming this necessary, useful and mutually beneficial US-Russian dialogue.” ». “There were even early indications that practical results could be achieved,” he added. “However, we return to the Cold War era: Russia is to blame for everything, Russia is attacking everyone, Russia must be prevented or, even better, destroyed.” However, even when bilateral diplomacy is at an obvious impasse, a State Department spokesman with whom Newsweek spoke confirmed that the Biden government will continue its efforts to curb the fraud of nation states in cyberspace. “We will continue to coordinate with partners and allies to call for and impose consequences on states that use cyberspace capabilities irresponsibly,” he said. Newsweek contacted the US Cyber Administration for comment.
