Russia said Wednesday it was open to considering any request from the United States for help in investigating the cyberattack on the US subsidiary of Brazilian meat processor JBS.
“There are contacts through diplomatic channels,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“If there are requests from the Americans they will be promptly considered.”
Peskov said he expected the issue of cybercrime to come up during the June 16 summit in Geneva between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US counterpart Joe Biden.
“It is quite clear that criminality and challenges in the cybersphere will be on the agenda one way or another,” he said.
JBS told the US government that it has received a ransom demand in a cyberattack it believes originated in Russia, forcing some plants to cut production.
The White House said it had offered assistance and was “engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals.”
Brazil-based JBS is a sprawling meat supplier with operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Britain.
The move against JBS came less than a month after a cyberattack temporarily shut down the Colonial Pipeline network and after the 2020 hack of the SolarWinds software company.
Last week, Microsoft warned that the Russian group behind the SolarWinds attack had re-emerged with a series of attacks on government agencies, think tanks and other groups.
