The Russian embassy in the United States has denied any role in a cyberattack that has disrupted America's largest gasoline pipeline.
The Colonial Pipeline was hit by ransomware over the weekend, and the company isn't expected to be back up and running until at least the end of the week.
The FBI announced on Monday that they had named a criminal group known as DarkSide, which some researchers suspect is located in Russia, as the perpetrators of the cyberextortion scheme.
President Joe Biden said in a speech on Monday that while there was "so far" no proof of Kremlin involvement, he believes the Russian government should bear "some responsibility" in dealing with the incident since "the actors' ransomware is in Russia."
The US president said that he intends to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the matter.
There is no proof that the Kremlin was involved.
Although Biden said that there is no proof of Russia's involvement in the attack, the Russian embassy in the United States tried to put an end to any speculation on Tuesday.
The embassy said it had noticed "attempts by some media to accuse Russia of a cyber-attack on Colonial Pipeline" in a statement posted on Facebook on Tuesday.
"We categorically condemn individual journalists' unfounded fabrications and affirm that Russia does not engage in 'malicious' activity in the virtual space," the statement said.
What exactly is DarkSide?
DarkSide is a "relatively new ransomware strain," according to Boston-based cybersecurity technology company Cybereason, which first appeared in August 2020.
The ransomware employs a "double extortion" strategy, in which the group encrypts the user's data before extracting it and threatening to make it public if the ransom is not paid.
Following the ransomware attack, the criminal organization released a statement claiming that it is uninterested in "geopolitics."
"We are apolitical, we don't engage in geopolitics, we don't need to be tied to a specific nation, and we don't need to look for other motivations," the group said in a statement.
"Our aim is to make money, not to cause social problems," it said.
To "stop potential social repercussions," the group said it was also implementing tests to moderate the companies that its partners might attack.
