WASHINGTON, July 10. /TASS/. US President Joe Biden is committed to cooperation with Russia aimed at eliminating the ransomware threat, and firmly believes in top-level cooperation with Moscow on the issue, a senior US administration official said.
During a conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Biden "emphasized that he’s committed to continued engagements on the broader threat posed by ransomware," the official said.
"The President believes strongly in this leader-level engagement on this issue as well," he said.
According to the official, Washington engages in this type of diplomacy with Russia not because the two countries agree on the issue often or all the time, but because Moscow and Washington have disagreements in so many areas, including this one.
"President Biden reiterated that the United States will take necessary action to defend its people and its critical infrastructure in the face of this continuing challenge. And the President has also called on governments and agencies to modernize their defenses to meet this threat," the official said.
The official also said the United States handed over numerous requests for action on cybercriminals.
"I guess what I can say is that we have relayed multiple specific requests for action on cybercriminals to Russia through official channels and been clear about what Russia’s responsibility is with regard to taking action, including, again, today, at the level of the two presidents. And I’ll just leave it at that," he said.
The presidents of Russia and the United States had a phone conversation on Friday. It was the first phone talk between Putin and Biden after their summit meeting in Geneva on June 16, when they spoke for nearly 3.5 hours. Before that, the two leaders spoke over the phone two times, on January 26 and on April 13.
The president continued dialogue on issues of information security and the fight against cybercrime that began at the Russian-US summit in Geneva, the Kremlin said. "In the context of the recent reports about a series of cyberattacks allegedly originating from Russia, Vladimir Putin noted that despite the Russian side’s readiness for joint efforts to stop crimes in the information space, no inquiries on these matters came from the United States’ security agencies in the past month," the Kremlin said.