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Russia officially denies involvement in hacker attacks on US institutions — Kremlin

According to the spokesman, it is Russophobia that is behind the accusations

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov Valery Sharifulin/TASS

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

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MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Moscow is not involved in hacker attacks on US government bodies and companies, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

"Russia is not involved in such attacks, namely this one. We state this officially and firmly," he said.

According to the spokesman, "any accusations of Russia’s involvement are absolutely baseless, they are more likely to be a continuation of blind Russophobia that is resorted to in case of any incident."

Peskov noted that the discussion of hacker attacks "is gaining steam in the United States, because it was the United States that fell victim to this hacker attack." "Definitely, this discussion has nothing to do with us," he stressed.

When asked about possible US initiatives in this situation, the Kremlin spokesman stated that "lately, it has been hard to predict US actions."

Hacker attacks in the US

It was reported earlier that the Orion software belonging to the SolarWinds company was hacked back in March 2020. The hackers were able to infiltrate a virus into an Orion update, which was then uploaded and used by thousands of SolarWinds clients, including leading US government institutions and over 400 major US companies.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency informed last week that the cyberattack "poses a grave risk" to US federal, state and local governments, as well as private organizations.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told The Mark Levin Show that Russia may be behind the attack. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the media had blown the incident out of proportion. He disagreed with media reports claiming that a group of hackers working for Moscow may be behind the attack, implicating China instead.

In the past, the Kremlin repeatedly denied Russia’s involvement in cyberattacks of this nature, calling on the US government to abandon baseless accusations. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered Washington to sign an agreement on cybersecurity partnership. According to Peskov, this could help both countries cooperate and counteract any cyberattacks, attempts at cyber espionage and so on.

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