President Joe Biden on Sunday signaled he is open to swapping cybercriminals with Moscow ahead of his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in Geneva.
Biden, who had just attended the G-7 Summit, held a press conference in the United Kingdom where he voiced a potential partnership with Russia. A Fox News segment reported that President Biden said he would be open to holding those who commit a crime against Russia accountable. who are in the United States accountable and that he considered it "potentially a good sign of progress."
Exchanging Cybercriminals
In an interview with Russian news agency TASS, Putin also raised the possibility of extraditing American cybercriminals to the U.S. and vice versa.
"If we agree on the extradition of criminals, then Russia will naturally do that but only if the other side, in this case, the United States, agrees to the same and will also extradite corresponding criminals to the Russian Federation," he was quoted as saying.
Moments after Biden's post-summit press conference, however, the White House walked back on the president's comments.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told press aboard the Air Force One that Biden was not pertaining to cybercriminals when he floated the idea of exchanging hackers and ransomware attackers with Russia.
Sullivan also noted that they have yet to find any cybercriminal who has committed crimes in Russia that the U.S. wants to attain. He later said the comments were "misread" in the press, according to the New York Post.
President Biden is expected to confront Russian President Putin over the recent wave of ransomware attacks conducted by hackers believed to be based in Eastern Europe or Russia.
On May 30, JBS USA, one of the largest suppliers of meat in the United States, announced its servers were attacked by a group of ransomware hackers believed to be based in Russia. In its news release, the company said the cybercriminals attacked the servers supporting its IT systems in North America and Australia.
Protection From Cybercrimes
JBS USA later paid an $11 million ransom to the hackers, saying it would protect the company from being targeted by future attacks and would likely prevent potential risks for its customers.
In early May, DarkSide, a hacker group based in Russia, attacked Colonial Pipeline. The incident forced the company to shut down more than 5,000 miles of its pipeline across Texas to New York in an effort to contain the breach.
The cyberattack led to a rise in gasoline prices across the East Coast and led to panic buying and gasoline shortage.
Colonial Pipeline later paid 75 Bitcoins to the hackers, worth more than $4 million, to recover their computer systems. Federal investigators were able to recover at least 73.7 Bitcoins or $2.3 million in ransom payments after tracking more than 23 different electronic accounts belonging to the hacker group.
Biden is expected to hold a solo press conference following his meeting with Putin.
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