Cyberattack Breaches US Republicans... White House "Investigating Behind the Scenes"

Foreign Media Concerned About Deterioration of Mirror Relations
UK BBC "Biden Warned Russia, Will Take Action"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo Yujin] The Biden administration in the United States has launched an investigation into a cyberattack on the Republican National Committee (RNC), which is presumed to be the work of Russia. This attack, occurring less than a month after President Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt cyberattacks during their summit, is expected to further deteriorate relations between the two countries.

On the 7th (local time), White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated during an Air Force One briefing en route to Chicago that authorities have been in contact with the RNC following a cyberattack on Synex, one of the IT service providers for the RNC.

The RNC is the headquarters responsible for overseeing the policies, organizational operations, and fundraising of the U.S. Republican Party. This attack took place just three weeks after President Biden warned President Putin at their summit that he must be held accountable for cyberattacks.

Psaki said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are conducting investigations, but the government has not yet officially determined who is behind the hacking.

She added that the attack targeted an external contractor associated with the RNC and that there was no access to RNC data.

Psaki also reported that before President Biden’s visit to Chicago, he received a briefing from the national security team on recent successive ransomware attacks and efforts to respond to them.

According to The Washington Post (WP), President Biden convened leaders of key departments and agencies, including the State Department and the Department of Justice, in the morning to discuss recent ransomware attacks targeting the U.S. and countermeasures.

The RNC has pointed to the hacker group "Cozy Bear," affiliated with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), as being behind this hacking. Also known as "APT29," this group is suspected of infiltrating the systems of nine U.S. government agencies last December through the U.S. network management company SolarWinds.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, they stole internal Democratic Party information from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers to interfere in the election, and recently attempted to hack Western COVID-19 vaccine research data.

This attack coincided with a large-scale cyberattack targeting hundreds of customers of the U.S. IT security management company Kaseya. The U.S. also considers the attack on Kaseya’s customers to be the work of a hacking group linked to Russia.

Foreign media have speculated that since two large-scale attacks occurred within a month after President Biden warned President Putin at their summit that the U.S. would respond in kind if Russia did not cooperate on cybersecurity issues, relations between the two countries could worsen further.

BBC UK reported, "Although the attack styles differed, both cyberattacks are linked to Russia," adding, "This attack may lead President Biden to conclude that it is now time to take action."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.