Biden and Putin discuss rules of engagement for cyber war, want critical services off-limit to cyberattacks

Services like telecommunications, healthcare, food and energy should be off-limits for any cyber attacks, the US President stated.

In the wake of increased cyberattacks from Russia, US President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin that some critical infrastructure should be "off-limits" to cyberattacks. The statement meant to address destructive hacks rather than intelligence gathering by the concerned agencies. Biden made the proposal on Wednesday following a lakeside summit with Putin in Geneva. "We agreed to task experts in both our countries to work on specific understandings about what is off-limits," he stated. He noted that the two countries would find out whether they have "a cybersecurity arrangement that begins to bring some order." Biden did not specify the sectors that were to be off-limits. However, he mentioned 16 infrastructure types which include telecommunications, healthcare, food and energy. These are the 16 sectors labelled as critical by the US Homeland Security Department.