'Extraordinary': Mitt Romney slams White House 'silence and inaction' in response to cyberattack

Sen. Mitt Romney added to the chorus of criticism over President Donald Trump's silence in response to the cyberattacks on multiple U.S. agencies that are suspected to be the work of Russian operatives.

During an interview with Sirius XM's Chief Washington Correspondent Olivier Knox on Thursday, the Utah Republican called the cyberattack "astonishing" and "the modern equivalent" of "Russian bombers reportedly flying undetected over the entire country."

"They had the capacity to show that our defense is extraordinarily inadequate; that our cyber warfare readiness is extraordinarily weak; that they think so little of our ability that to fight back from a cyber standpoint, that they do this with impunity. So our national security is extraordinarily vulnerable," Romney said.

"And in this setting, not to have the White House aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action is really, really quite extraordinary," he added.

And in a tweet the same day, Romney decried the "inexcusable silence and inaction from the White House" after the electronic security breach.

'Grave risk': Cyberattack threatens private sector, infrastructure, all levels of government

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI have not publicly said who was behind the attacks, but a number of cybersecurity experts have flagged Russia as the likely culprit. When asked if Russia was behind the attack, an unnamed U.S. official told The Associated Press that Russia was believed to be behind the breach, but it was not "100% confirmed."

In a bulletin on Thursday about the cyberattacks, CISA said "this threat poses a grave risk to the federal government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations."

Authorities are still working to determine the full extent of the security, but the attack appears to have centered on widely used software from a company called SolarWinds, though CISA warned the hackers may have used additional methods to infiltrate systems.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said Thursday in a post on the company's blog that the software giant's analysis determined more than 40 organizations were victims of the malware placed in SolarWinds' software. Those include government agencies, information technology companies, government contractors and think tanks.

"This is not 'espionage as usual,' even in the digital age," Smith said. "Instead, it represents an act of recklessness that created a serious technological vulnerability for the United States and the world. In effect, this is not just an attack on specific targets, but on the trust and reliability of the world’s critical infrastructure in order to advance one nation’s intelligence agency."

In a New York Times op-ed on Wednesday, Thomas Bossert, a former Homeland Security adviser to Trump, said the "attack points to the Russian intelligence agency known as the S.V.R., whose tradecraft is among the most advanced in the world."

"While all indicators point to the Russian government, the United States, and ideally its allies, must publicly and formally attribute responsibility for these hacks," Bossert wrote. "If it is Russia, President Trump must make it clear to Vladimir Putin that these actions are unacceptable."

What you need to know about the hack: Cybersecurity attack against US government

President-elect Joe Biden said Thursday that his transition team had been briefed on what he described as "a massive cybersecurity breach affecting potentially thousands of victims."

"There’s a lot we don’t yet know, but what we do know is a matter of great concern," Biden said in a statement.

Romney joins other critics who have assailed Trump's silence on the cyberattacks, even as he continues to air a host of other grievances on social media, including another attack late Thursday on the late Sen. John McCain.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who has said the hack is "virtually a declaration of war by Russia on the United States," told MSNBC he was "stunned by two things."

"First, the unfolding stories of the extent of this breach of our national security by the Russians, and second, by the silence of the White House. Why hasn't this president spoken out against the Russians and what they have done?" he asked. "He's just as silent about this episode as he was about the Russian bounties on American soldiers.

"I don't understand this president."

Contributing: Kevin Johnson and Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mitt Romney slams White House 'silence and inaction' after cyberattack