US President Joe Biden and his national security team are planned to hold a meeting with the country’s business executives over the cybersecurity issues.
According to a National Security Council spokesperson, the meeting, which is going to be held on Aug. 25, will be specifically about what the US claims to be cyberattacks from the Russia-based criminal syndicates and cybersecurity threats from the Chinese government.
“Today more than ever, cybersecurity is an economic security and national security imperative, and both the federal government and the private sector play a critical role,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson provided no details about which private sector executives would attend the meeting.
Over the last months, a wave of disruptive cyberattacks, targeting the United States’ food, energy, technology sectors have made Biden put cybersecurity at the top of his agenda.
During a summit in Geneva on June 16, Biden said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to work together to address cybersecurity concerns, such as ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure, including fuel pipelines.
He also asked Putin in a phone call earlier this month to clamp down on cyber hackers, warning of consequences if such attacks continued to proliferate.
However, many believe that China's alleged cyberattacks are of more significance to the Biden administration.
In a coordinated announcement on Monday, the White House and US allies in Europe and Asia alleged that the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the country’s civilian intelligence agency, has been using "criminal contract hackers" to conduct hacking operations around the world for personal profit.
Microsoft had previously claimed that hackers linked to the Chinese Ministry of State Security had infiltrated the software company’s email systems in March.
But the statement from the White House marked the first time that the US formally accused China of paying hackers to carry out ransomware attacks to extort companies for millions of dollars.
Both China and Russia have dismissed allegations by the Biden administration as baseless.