CNN | Ransomware attacks saddle Biden with grave national security crisis

(CNN) – The Biden administration Sunday confronted the implications of a sudden and grave national security challenge as ransom-demanding cyber hackers target the staples of American life — food, gaswater, hospitals and transport.

The assaults, which have led the FBI director to make comparisons to 9/11, are targeting the country’s vulnerable infrastructure as it struggles back to life after pandemic shutdowns and are putting civilians on the front lines of an invisible conflict likely to defy quick fixes to lessen the threat.

They leave President Joe Biden, who took office amid multiple crises, with thorny dilemmas about how to respond without escalating a full-on international cyber war and expose him to new political vulnerability. Many of the attacks appear to be the work of criminal gangs on Russian soil, heaping more pressure on the President’s already tense, high-stakes summit next week with President Vladimir Putin during his first foreign trip.  –read more