Security News > 2021 > March > US newspaper's 'Biden will hack Russia' claim: A good way to reassure Putin you'll leave him alone

The US government might have subtly signalled that it likely won't hack Russia this month - by telling credulous journalists it has a "Clandestine" plan to, er, launch an attack against its rival before April.

Set against the backdrop of the SolarWinds and FireEye hack, and the most recent Hafnium attacks against Microsoft Exchange servers, it isn't hard to imagine presidential PR advisors wanting to give the impression that cyber warfare is their boss's top priority.

Clearly this is not how cyber warfare is going to be waged, any more than the US Air Force might phone ISIS and warn them of a missile strike on their leader's compound next Tuesday.

Ciaran Martin, former head of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre and no stranger to the feverish atmosphere of international cyber policy, agreed, telling The Register: "I think this is for domestic consumption. I suspect if it was an authorised leak, it was authorised by someone who doesn't understand it."

The greater danger, if the newspaper report is taken at face value, is that a US cyberattack against Russia in the next few months would give plenty of ammunition to Russia for complaining about US cyber-aggression: a charge that would be impossible to refute - and which would be gleefully repeated at any moment when Western leaders tried to seize the moral high ground over international cyber norms.

Martin, who has a better claim to expert knowledge of the cyber policy field than most commentators, said in the past that bombast about launching cyber attacks generally hasn't worked as a deterrent against hostile attacks.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/03/09/us_wont_hack_russia/