Washington: Economic sanctions are an additional “tool in the toolbox” to address the challenge of overseas cyber attacks, the US has said amid reports that it was considering sanctions on Chinese firms involved in cyber-economic espionage.
“The only reason the President’s policy team could potentially consider sanctions against those who have committed acts of cyber theft against the US or US institutions, or benefitted from cyber theft, is because the President signed an executive order this year giving the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to use sanctions in that way,” said Josh Earnest, White House Press Secretary.
“This means the US has an additional tool in the toolbox to confront this particular challenge,” Earnest said. He said the US President had been consistently raising this issue with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and described this as an issue of significant concern.
