PRESS: US reluctant to team up with Russia to resist cyberattacks

MOSCOW, Aug 9 (PRIME) -- Russia has included an offer of cooperation to the U.S. in prevention of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, like power stations and transport control systems, into a draft joint statement of the two countries’ heads at a recent Helsinki summit, business daily Kommersant reported on Thursday.

Several sources from Russia and the U.S. told the daily that this issue was discussed by officials of the countries within preparation of the first full-scale summit of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on July 16 in the Finnish capital.

The clause on necessity of partnership in protection of critical infrastructure was included into the draft of a two-page joint statement of the presidents, which was prepared by Moscow.

The document also contained a clause on cooperation in the cyber space.

A source in the U.S. government said that Washington found signing any documents “counterproductive” at the current stage.

In 2013, Russia and the U.S. signed agreements, the first in the world, on measures of trust in the information space. The documents stipulated the creation of a hotline to abort a threat of allowing cyber incidents to develop into serious conflicts.

The hotline was first used during the 2014 Sochi Olympics, when critical Russian infrastructure was hit by a strong cyberattack suspected to originate from the U.S. The targeted facilities were not disclosed, but the threat was eliminated.

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