(Washington) United States President Joe Biden said on Monday that it was a “patriotic” duty for American companies to better protect themselves from possible computer attacks carried out by Russia in response to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow for its offensive in Ukraine.
Posted at 3:35 p.m.
Updated at 6:55 p.m.
“The national interest is at stake. […] It’s a patriotic duty to invest as much as you can” in cybersecurity, he said during a meeting in Washington with business representatives.
“Russia could be preparing an action against us […]. Russia has substantial IT resources, and it will happen,” he said.
“My government reiterates these warnings based on ever-changing intelligence data that the Russian state is considering different avenues of potential cyberattacks,” the president also wrote in a statement released by the House of Commons. White.
Computer attacks are part of the “strategy manual” guiding the Russian state, insists Joe Biden, for whom it is today “crucial to accelerate the task of strengthening our internal computer security”.
According to the White House, essential infrastructures, mainly operated and owned by the American private sector, could be targeted.
“We still have so much to do to gain assurance that we have locked down all digital gateways, especially the one to the capital services that Americans rely on,” confirmed Anne Neuberger, an executive branch official in charge of these questions.