Trump plays down government cyber attack as Pompeo blames Russia
20 December, 2020
President Donald Trump on Saturday played down an enormous cyber attack on US government agencies, declaring it "in order" and undercutting the assessment by his own administration that Russia was to blame.
"I have been fully briefed and everything is well in order," Mr Trump said on Twitter in his first public comments on the hack.
"Russia Russia Russia may be the priority chant when anything happens," he said, suggesting without offering evidence that China "may" also be engaged.
Mr Trump's response was in sharp contradiction to comments a day earlier from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about both the source and the severe nature of the attack. Mr Pompeo had said the breach - which cyber authorities say could have far-reaching impact and take months to unravel - was "pretty clearly" Russia's work.
"There was a significant effort to employ a little bit of third-party software to essentially embed code within US government systems," Mr Pompeo told interviewer Mark Levin, alluding to trusted security software from Texas firm SolarWinds.
"This was an extremely significant effort," he said. "And I think it is the case that now we are able to say pretty evidently that it had been the Russians that engaged in this activity."
Mr Trump's tweets left administration spokespeople scrambling to reconcile the conflicting takes.
CNN said White House officials had made plans on Friday release a a statement directly blaming Russia, before it had been abruptly pulled back for unclear reasons.
It was definately not the very first time the president has played down apparent threats from Russia, starting with his refusal to discover interference by Moscow in the 2016 election despite the clear finding of US intelligence agencies.
Russia has denied involvement in the most recent attack, but several officials in and from the US government have pointed the finger at Moscow, and none at Beijing.
There is no immediate reaction from China.
Dramatic information regarding the extraordinarily wide attack have emerged even while President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office next month amid already high tensions with Moscow.
Mr Biden has expressed "great concern" over the breach.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Thursday the attack posed a "grave risk" and thwarting it could be "highly complicated." It didn't identify those behind it.
On Friday, senator Marco Rubio, a prominent Republican, said "the methods used to handle the cyberhack are regular with Russian cyber operations," but insisted that it had been crucial to be certain.
"We can't afford to be wrong on attribution, because America must retaliate, and not simply with sanctions."
In a move apparently planned before news of the cyber attack emerged, the US State Department on Saturday confirmed plans to close both remaining American consulates in Russia, in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg, because of "ongoing staffing challenges".
Among the federal government agencies damaged by the cyber attack, according to media reports, will be the departments of State, Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security.
Also targeted were the National Institutes of Health - at the same time of keen interest in coronavirus vaccines - in addition to the Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which manage the nuclear weapons stockpile.
Microsoft said on Thursday it had notified a lot more than 40 customers hit by the malware, which security authorities say could allow attackers unfettered network access to key government systems and energy grids and other utilities.
About 80 % of the afflicted customers are in the US, Microsoft president Brad Smith said, with victims also within Belgium, Britain, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Spain and the UAE.
"It's certain that the quantity and location of victims could keep growing," Mr Smith said.
Nato said on Saturday it was checking its personal computers but had found "no proof compromise".
The European Commission said on Saturday it had not found any computer system intrusion but was "analysing the problem".
In one of his two tweets on Saturday, Mr Trump attempted to link the cyber attack to his persistent efforts to undercut Mr Biden's election win.
"There could likewise have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now evident that I won big, making it a far more corrupted embarrassment for the united states."
It had been his latest baseless allegation of mass fraud in the November 3 vote, and Twitter appended an email stating that Mr Biden have been certified by election officials as the winner.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com