OREANDA-NEWS. The newspaper reported that a response to the hacking of US government networks, which Washington accuses Russian intelligence services, will follow within three weeks. US is also thinking about cyber attacks on China after Microsoft's recent hack

The US authorities will launch several cyberattacks against Russia in the next three weeks in response to a large-scale hacking of US government networks discovered in late 2020. This is reported by The New York Times with reference to officials familiar with the plans.

The hacker attacks, the newspaper writes, will be covert and invisible to the rest of the world, but "obvious to Russian intelligence, the armed forces and President Vladimir Putin."

Cyberattacks will be carried out in combination with economic sanctions. According to NYT interlocutors, this will be the very response of the administration of President Joe Biden to the hacking of federal networks, which the White House has repeatedly stated earlier.

In addition, Washington is considering possible retaliatory cyber attacks against China - on March 2, Microsoft announced that the Chinese hacker group Hafnium, which is backed by the PRC authorities, attacked the postal services of an American company and tried to steal information from several organizations and institutions.

A large-scale hacker attack on American government departments and large companies became known in mid-December last year. According to Washington, it lasted for several months, cybercriminals gained access to the networks of the Ministry of Finance and the national administration for telecommunications and information, which is part of the Ministry of Commerce.

Washington blamed the cyberattack on the Cozy Bear hacker group, which works for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. It was later discovered that the hackers used a vulnerability in the software of SolarWinds, a Microsoft contractor, to break into federal networks.