The United States Sanction Russia in Response to Cyberattacks

Last updated September 28, 2021
Written by:
Bill Toulas
Bill Toulas
Infosec Writer

Back in February, U.S. President Joe Biden held a speech at the State Department, warning the Russian state to stop the hacks immediately or get ready for escalation. Putin never admitted to having any involvement in the Sunburst attacks that went so deep in the American intelligence, but officially, the US held them accountable without a doubt.

The same applies to election interference, which Moscow also denied. Now, the U.S. Department of Treasury has come forth with an announcement of a set of sanctions against Russia, so the Biden administration has finally delivered on the bashing promise.

Here’s a summary of the sanctions announced:

The immediate effect on the above is expected to be a broader slow-down in investments going in the Russian market, a slow-down in Russian’s growth rate, a rise in the inflation rate, and a rise in borrowing costs. Obviously, the relations between the United States and Russia are entering a dark phase in modern history, and it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

That is especially when considering that the two presidents discussed a range of matters over the phone two days before the sanctions were announced, so we can only assume that the call didn’t yield anything dispelling.

Tim Wade, CTO at Vectra, shared the following comment with us:

This action underscores the increasing degree to which nation states leverage non-government entities as a strategic extension of their state cyber capabilities, which include actors drawn from criminal organizations in addition to the private sector. In this specific case, the Treasury has drawn a direct line of sight between these sanctions and the destabilizing role that the FSB, GRU, and SVR have played in the recent SolarWinds attacks. The degree to which this acts as an effective deterrence, however, remains to be seen.



For a better user experience we recommend using a more modern browser. We support the latest version of the following browsers: For a better user experience we recommend using the latest version of the following browsers: