HIGHLIGHTS

• Biden noted that if the US ends up in a war — a real shooting war with a major power — it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach.
• Cybersecurity has become a major agenda for the Biden administration after a series of high profile attacks on entities.
• Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin and Biden shared a list of critical infrastructure the US considers off-limits on Jun 16.

United States President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that if the country ends up being in a real shooting war with a major power it could be because of a significant cyberattack. Biden mentioned Russia and China as growing threats to American national security and said that the growing wave of cyberattacks, including ransomware attacks, against government agencies and private industry that US officials have linked to agents in both countries.

“I think it’s more than likely we’re going to end up, if we end up in a war — a real shooting war with a major power — it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach of great consequence and it’s increasing exponentially, the capabilities,” Biden said during a half-hour speech while visiting the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Cybersecurity has become a top agenda for the Biden administration after a series of high profile attacks on entities such as network management company SolarWinds, the Colonial Pipeline company, meat processing company JBS and software firm Kaseya hurt the US far beyond just the companies hacked. Some of the attacks affected fuel and food supplies in parts of the US.

Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin and Biden shared a list of critical infrastructure the US considers off-limits to nation-state actors during a June 16 summit in Geneva. Since then senior members of the Biden administration’s national security team have been in constant contact with senior members of the Kremlin over cyber attacks on the United States, agencies quoted the White House. Biden highlighted the threats posed by China, referring to President Xi Jinping as “deadly earnest about becoming the most powerful military force in the world, as well as the largest and most prominent economy in the world by the mid-40s, the 2040s.”

Biden in his remarks to 120 ODNI employees and senior leadership officials asserted that he understood the complexity and critical nature of their work. The agency oversees the 17 other US intelligence organisations. “You have my full confidence.I know there’s no such thing as 100 per cent certainty in the intelligence world. Occasionally that happens. Rarely, rarely, rarely,” he said. He noted that he would never politicise the intelligence’s work.