STOLYPIN: Putin’s cybercrime challenge
Following recent cases of Russian-linked cyberespionage and ransomware attacks. President Joe Biden has cranked up the pressure on Vladimir Putin to act. Despite easy stereotypes that the Kremlin is behind, or at least passively sanctions every act of Russian cybercrime, though, this is actually a thorny problem for the Russian government. It is not just how far it really can police its own online space, but also whether it is willing to give up on its use of ‘patriotic hackers’ as a deniable tool of political war.
When the two presidents met in Geneva, matters cyber were high on the agenda. The Russians have long been pushing for a comprehensive cybersecurity treaty, and while this would not be a bad thing, it would take years to conclude. It is hard not to see this as a gambit by Russia at once to present itself as a ‘good guy’ and world leader, to make sure it can control or influence the terms of any international accord, and to lobby to sanctify its claims to ‘sovereign internet’ – that every country ought to be able to control what is available online within its borders. The Kremlin, after all, is more concerned with information and agitation from abroad than hacks.
The Americans had a much more immediate and pragmatic set of concerns. Biden and the Democrat Party is still angry at the interference in the 2016 elections that many believe (in defiance of most evidence, it has to be said) handed the presidency to Trump. More immediately, US corporations and its online infrastructure is being battered by a series of ransomware attacks, of which Russians are deemed the most serious practitioners, and the extremely sophisticated SolarWinds hack in 2020 had also just opened up numerous government departments to Russian cyberespionage.
