US President Joe Biden will review the threat posed by ransomware attacks, the White House said, adding that the POTUS is going to discuss the issue of "harbouring hackers responsible for such acts" with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"The president has launched a rapid strategic review to address the increased threat of ransomware to include four major lines of effort," which includes disruption of ransomware infrastructure and actors, said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
She added that the ransomware attack against the JBS USA food processing company will be discussed during the upcoming tête-à-tête between Biden and Putin.
"We do expect this too to be one of the issues that the President will discuss with President Putin at the summit that will be two weeks from today," Psaki said. "In terms of considerations, we are not taking any options off the table in terms how we may respond but of course there is an internal policy review process to consider that."
According to Reuters, JBS told the White House this week that the ransomware attack was carried out by a criminal organisation likely based in Russia. It's reportedly the third such cyberattack targeting the US since Biden took office.
"President Biden certainly thinks that President Putin and the Russian government has a role to play in stopping and preventing these attacks," Psaki remarked.
The meeting between Putin and Biden is expected to take place on 16 June in Geneva.
Previously, JBS said it determined on 30 May that it was "the target of an organised cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems".
This week, the company announced that it had made "significant progress in resolving the cyberattack."
The Colonial Pipeline, one of the nation’s largest providers of fuel that carries around 45 percent of the gasoline to the country's east coast, was also targeted by a ransomware attack in May. Its chief executive Joseph Blount later admitted that the company ended up paying some $4.4 million in ransom to a cybercriminal outfit known as DarkSide, which was apparently responsible.
