The US is preparing to take action against Russia after a major cyber attack

The United States is preparing to take action against Russia after concluding it was likely involved in a major cyber attack that hit government systems and domestic businesses, The New York Times reported Sunday. The move comes when the Biden administration begins to grapple with the disclosure of another allegedly state-sponsored attack that appears to be coming from China.

The White House confirmed that it will take “a mix of actions” in response to the cyber attack from Russia, although it did not provide specific information on when and how it would do so.

“As we said, we will respond to the Solar[W]inds hack with a mix of visible and unseen action, “White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement to CNBC.” We will not publicly discuss certain aspects of our response. ”

The US is reeling from the attack discovered only a few months ago by IT company SolarWinds. US officials have said they believe Russians were behind the breach, which affected several government agencies using the technology.

The first of the US actions could come in the next three weeks, unnamed officials told the Times, and they would start a series of actions in Russia meant to be noticed by President Vladimir Putin and his intelligence personnel, but not by the public. The US would also impose economic sanctions and President Joe Biden would sign an executive order to strengthen government networks, officials said.

The news comes days after Microsoft revealed another major breach of its services related to hackers in China. A source familiar with the US government’s response told Reuters on Friday that more than 20,000 US organizations had been compromised by the attack. According to Reuters, the American investigation revealed, among other things, city councils and credit unions. Microsoft did not disclose the exact scale of the attacks, but initially said they were “limited and targeted.”

Read the full story in The New York Times.

– CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.

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WATCH: How the massive SolarWinds hack went down