the cyberthreat with top business leaders what did he say? norah, moments ago the president said the following. we quote. the magnitude f russia s cybercapacity is fairly consequential and it s coming, this has been a long running concern so why the alarm bells. u.s. intelligence have detected what it calls preparatory activities that could signal a large scale russian set of attacks, hacks or software viruses. targets of most concern, big banks, pipeline, water systems, electrical grids. last week top administration officials delivered classified briefings to more than 100 businesses and entities urging them to beef up their cybersecurity defenses as rapidly as possible, as the motive, top administration officials say russia could be feeling at long last the bite of economic sanctions or lashing out due to frustration over its stalled military campaign. o donnell: that s big news, major, also what you can tell us about the president s meeting with top european leaders today.
the country, that the country now needs to deal with that threat in a same aimilar way. we saw a memo that went out yesterday, there needs to be better communication within the department, across the kun tru w country when it comes to alerting the department of justice about the threats and investigating these threats tl. we saw a plea to companies around the country to harden and modernize their cybersecurity defenses. the white house literally saying we cannot do this alone. when you talk to experts say they need to play a role in this. they do control oso much of the infrastructure. the u.s. needs to figure out a way to deter these hackers and make it not worth their while. one way that they re trying to
washington. alex, good morning to you. you know, the white house has a point here. some companies, a lot of the banks spent a ton of money protecting against this stuff in recent years. a lot of other companies haven t. yeah. and poppy and jim, so many of these companies, majrleparticulo many of these that we have seen are part of the country s r critical infrastructure. whac what the biden administration is saying we cannot do this alone. to make the point of how important this is, they re adding urgency to it by releasing an open letter that the national security council s top cyber official wrote today to business leaders across the country, calling on them to modernize and harden their cybersecurity defenses. this is part of what she wrote to those business leaders. she says, all organizations must recognize that no company is
its facilities today after a ransomware attack forced a shutdown of its plants around the world. cnn s alex marquardt joins us from washington. what does the white house want these execs to do? reporter: well, the white house is telling companies quite literally, we cannot do this alone. they are saying that we have stepped up across the board to try to harden and modernize the country s cybersecurity defenses and they are asking companies to do the same to protect themselves, to protect the country, particularly when it comes to critical infrastructure. as you noted, we ve had these two back-to-back ransomware attacks that appear to have generated from russia, one against the colonial pipeline, the other against jbs, one of the biggest food production companies in the world. both of those attacks crippling those operations for those two companies. the white house is now stepping up the urgency of their message by putting out an open memo, a letter from the most senior cyber offici
intelligence, dan coats. you hear about this double-down on the fact that we have so many different threats coming from russia that endanger the security of the elections. it really makes it clear how much we need the elections security act which will provide for security audits, provide paper ballots, provide states with cybersecurity defenses. the hearing was canceled on this bill because the white house weighed in and said they don t want it. i want the white house to say that if russia continues and messes around with our 2018 election, there will be enormous consequences, by the partisipar efforts. the publisher of the national inquirier, long time friend of the president and involved in the payoff to kill