Cybersecurity

US will impose costs on Russia for cyber ‘acts of aggression,’ White House cybersecurity czar says

Russia will be made to pay for its acts of cyber aggression on the international stage, Rob Joyce, special assistant to the president and White House cybersecurity coordinator, told CNBC on Friday.

The act in question was the malware attack known as NotPetya that wiped out billions of dollars as it spread across 64 countries in July 2017. The White House, for the first time Thursday, directly blamed Russia's military for the attack.

"We're going to work on the international stage to impose consequences. Russia has to understand that they have to behave responsibly on the international stage," Joyce said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. "So we're going to see levers the U.S. government can do to impose those costs."

A veteran of the intelligence community, Joyce spent 27 years at the National Security Agency prior to this current post in the White House.

NotPetya appeared in Ukraine last July and spread to Europe and the U.S., wreaking havoc on businesses including banks, shipping ports, law firms, transportation networks and government agencies in what's been considered the costliest cyber attack in history.