MOSCOW (REUTERS) - Russia has not had any contact from the United States over a sophisticated ransomware attack that hit hundreds of American businesses and led to suspicions of Russian gang involvement, the Interfax news agency cited the Kremlin as saying on Monday (July 5).

       Security firm Huntress Labs said on Friday it believed the Russia-linked REvil ransomware gang was to blame for the attack. Last month, the FBI blamed the same group for paralysing meat packer JBS.

       President Joe Biden has directed US intelligence agencies to investigate.

       "I have no information that any data was provided. No, no data was received," Interfax cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

       He said the Kremlin was not aware of the attack.

       Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to begin consultations on cybersecurity issues during a summit in Geneva on June 16, with Biden warning of consequences if ransomware attacks emanating from Russia continued to proliferate.

       Russia has repeatedly denied carrying out or tolerating cyber attacks.

       Supply chain attacks have crept to the top of the cybersecurity agenda after the United States accused hackers of operating at the Russian government's direction and tampering with a network monitoring tool built by Texas software firm SolarWinds.

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