Cyber criminals 'WON'T be extradited to Russia' White House says after Biden claims he's 'open to' deal with Putin
CYBERCRIMINALS will not be extradited to Russia – hours after president Biden suggested he was "open" to a potential agreement with Putin.
It comes after the Russian strongman touted an idea where criminals who had carried out cyber hacks against Moscow or Washington would be "extradited".
President Biden told reporters at the G7 summit in Cornwall that Putin's idea was "potentially a good sign of progress".
But, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan rejected any suggestions of a potential agreement between the two leaders, MailOnline reports.
He said: "This is not about exchanges or swaps or anything like that. What the president was responding to in the affirmative was not the specific proposal of the exchange of cybercriminals."
It's reported that Biden is not considering any potential "swap" or exchange of criminals.
It comes after the president will not hold a joint press conference following his summit with the Russian strongman in Geneva on Wednesday.
It's reported that Biden is not "interested" in getting into a "contest".
The White House is reportedly reluctant to grant Putin a prominent platform and place to put Biden at the mercy of comments made by his Russian counterpart.
Biden told reporters: "This is not a contest about who can do better in front of a press conference or try to embarrass each other.
"It is about making myself very clear what the conditions are to get a better relationship with Russia. We're not looking for conflict."
When asked about the relationship between the US and Putin, he said: "Well let me be clear, I think he's it's a low point.
Putin chillingly laughed off Biden’s previously made claim that the Russian leader was a "killer".
During an NBC interview in which he heaped praise on "extraordinary" Donald Trump, he branded Joe Biden "a career politician".
The Russian president said Trump is a "colorful" individual and admired the outsider in the former president.
The White House said a solo press conference is "the appropriate format" for Biden to communicate clearly with reporters about the topics discussed in the meeting.
Biden also blames Russia for the massive SolarWinds cyberattack, election interference, and harboring criminals behind a spate of ransomware attacks.
Several cyberattacks have hit the US in recent weeks.
Meatpacking plant JBS reportedly paid an $11billion ransom in bitcoin to cyberattackers who shut down their plants.
Officials learned of the attack on May 30 after noticing “irregularities” on their computer servers and the world’s largest meat company subsequently paused meat production at its US plants.
Andre Nogueira, the CEO for the Brazilian company’s US division, told the Wall Street Journal that the payment was made after plants returned to operation.
He said: “It was very painful to pay the criminals but we did the right thing for our customers.”
Spies behind the SolarWinds hack launched a phishing email attack on 150 organizations including government agencies last month.
A quarter of the email accounts belonged to organizations working in human rights and international development, Microsoft corporate vice president Tom Burt wrote in a blog post.
The cyberhack was reportedly conducted by Nobelium – the same actor that carried out the attacks on SolarWinds customers last year.
The spies gained access to an email service used by USAID – United States Agency for International Development.
Republicans have warned that DC’s response to cyberattacks is “weak and naïve” following the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.
Russian crime group DarkSide hacked the pipeline, causing the shutdown of the main supplier of gasoline and diesel to the east coast.
Colonial Pipeline reportedly paid DarkSide nearly $5 million in a ransom to retrieve its stolen data.
GOP senator Lindsey Graham said Washington doesn’t understand how to “prevent” cybercrimes.
Last year, Kremlin spies reportedly hacked Microsoft and infiltrated a US nuclear weapons stockpile as part of a nine-month "virtual invasion" by Moscow.
The malware was isolated to business networks and didn’t affect US national security.
Moscow denied having any connection to the United States' hack via the Embassy in Washington.
Hackers believed to be acting on behalf of the Russian foreign intelligence service SVR breached and stole data from agencies within the Treasury Department and the US Department of Commerce, The New York Times and Washington Post reported.
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