Tag: Donald Trump silent on Russian hack of U.S. government

Biden and lawmakers raise alarms over cybersecurity breach amid Trump’s silence

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Democrats and some Republicans raised the alarm Thursday about a massive and growing cybersecurity breach that many experts blame on Russia, with President-elect Joe Biden implicitly criticizing the Trump administration for allowing the hacking attack to occur.

“We need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyber attacks in the first place,” Biden said in a statement. “Our adversaries should know that, as president, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.”

President Trump, by contrast, has said nothing about the hack affecting numerous federal agencies as well as U.S. companies. U.S. national security agencies are still assessing the scope and severity of the breach, which was discovered by a commercial firm. Continue reading.

More Hacking Attacks Found as Officials Warn of ‘Grave Risk’ to U.S. Government

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Minutes after the government statement, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. warned that his administration would impose “substantial costs” on those responsible. President Trump has been silent on the hacking.

WASHINGTON — Federal officials issued an urgent warning on Thursday that hackers who American intelligence agencies believed were working for the Kremlin used a far wider variety of tools than previously known to penetrate government systems, and said that the cyberoffensive was “a grave risk to the federal government.”

The discovery suggests that the scope of the hacking, which appears to extend beyond nuclear laboratories and Pentagon, Treasury and Commerce Department systems, complicates the challenge for federal investigators as they try to assess the damage and understand what had been stolen.

Minutes after the statement from the cybersecurity arm of the Department of Homeland Security, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. warned that his administration would impose “substantial costs” on those responsible. Continue reading.