The New York Times: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia's Power Grid

The New York: Times U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia's Power Grid
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/worl...s-on-russias-power-grid/ar-AACWG5a?li=AAgfIYZ

WASHINGTON — The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia’s electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, current and former government officials said.

In interviews over the past three months, the officials described the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s grid and other targets as a classified companion to more publicly discussed action directed at Moscow’s disinformation and hacking units around the 2018 midterm elections.

Under the law, those actions can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval.
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The Dept of Defense intentionally withheld details about this operation with Trump over concerns that he might leak it to Russia. The fact that our own intelligence officials are not comfortable sharing intelligence information with the president of the US-- two years later demonstrates what dangerous territory we're in. The fact is, they cannot trust the president of the US with the details of highly classified information, they have an obligation to protect and defend the United States.

 

There is another thread about this topic.

Did you know that the US renewed its nuclear posture stance to include the usage of nukes in case of severe cyber attacks?

I think Russia should do the same, it's only fair.

And I love the types of articles with anonymous sources as a reference. They all seem to be like that lately. If it weren't anonymous sources, they will not exist or the source will stay 175 years in prison.
But kinda hard to believe, ah?
My avatar sums it up.

 

Ok...so, the Russkis shut down some of Ukraine's power grid back in 2017....supposedly.

The Russkis can do their hacker attacks....but no one else?

The US has several ways of crippling Russia....not just cyber attacks.

 

I am surprised that Trump would let the US attack the Russian power grid, but good on him.

 

Obama's recklessness could have been disasterous. Adm. Rogers flatly refused to obey Obama's insane orders. Ash Carter and J. Clapper were frothing. Rogers wouldn't "detonate" the CIA / NSA cyber bombs that Obama's spooks infected Russia's infrastructure with. They wanted Rogers "head". https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/...e-obama-administrations-cyber-weaponry-221028 Obama, so distraught about the inevitable exposure of his crooked legacy that he would have sent the US back to the stone age by provoking cyber armageddon. Per your usual, your applauding a strategy that could destroy America. I pray that Trump doesn't replace Adm. Rogers with an unhinged Obama hold-over. A deranged Obama cultist going off on a rogue cyber kamikaze mission is the last thing this country needs ...

 

I sure that the US has the means, and lots of them.
But it's still reckless.
We all know that Russia will respond in kind for a severe cyber attack. What tit for tat, I'm not sure.

 

This is crazy stuff. The damage and disruption due to a cyber war could be massive. If lone kid cyber hackers can hack into our networks will relative ease - what are nation states capable of ?

 

So you are saying that the military is conducting attacks on Russia without presidential approval? Not sure if that counts as treason or not by the letter of the law, but it sure hell hell sounds like it to me.

 

Russia has Snowden, and Wiki published Vault 7. The NSA cyber weapons were just used to cripple Baltimore. Google any NYC blackout and appreciate how quickly chaos and mayhem follow. The globe really needs to adopt a cyber warfare treaty IMO.

 

Agreed. While I think these recent provocations are just political gamesmanship for propaganda purposes - there is no doubt that the threat itself is real.

As is the case with nukes - perhaps on a level not quite as severe but the analogy still holds - for Russia to engage in a full on cyber attack against US infrastructure would be "MAD" - mutually assured destruction.

In other words - it is highly unlikely that Russia would just wake up in the morning and fire a few cyber nukes at the US - just as it would be highly unlikely that we would do the same. I could see a small demonstration conducted by one side or the other - just as a warning shot like what happened in Ukraine - but, not a full on attack.

I read an article on how vulnerable our infrastructure is to such attacks and it is ridiculous how much damage could be done with relative ease. We built our whole system up over the past number decades to be reliant on hackable technology. This was done with almost no regard to this potential threat.

If someone within a company can access controls via remote communication - and this is how this stuff is set up - some hacker can also access these controls - or set off a virus that is already embedded in that system.

 

Trump labeled this report treason and it comes very close to being that

 

Didn’t you cry collusion just a few months ago?

 

This NYT article really does not pass the smell test. It makes no sense. It reads like a similar article from years ago, but with Trump added in. Maybe the NYT is trying to jam up Trump before he meets Putin at the G20. I no longer trust anonymouns govt sources.

Here is some commentary on the story.

 

Very dangerous territory, and the people who pushed the Russiagate conspiracy theory are to blame.

 

Just because they do not have to ask special permission from the president does not mean they can hide it from him. On the other hand, the MIC and US govt is infested with warmongers so they might want to hide starting a war with Russia from a president who ran on a platform of trying to get along with Russia.

Also, let me understand this. Some people did not want to share it with the president for fear he would tell the Russians. Then they leak it to the NYT??? Do the Russians not read the NYT?

 

The US is far more vulnerable to cyber attacks than the Russians. Hillary's server, the DNC server, the OPM database, Snowden, and Manning are just garden variety public examples of how the people in govt treat cyber security. God only knows about the mission critical systems that have been infiltrated.

 

This sounds like BS to me. Ridiculous story from the New York Times with anonymous sources? They need to bring some real proof to the table.

 

Modern warfare will increasingly be fought with cyber attacks. US military is probably more dependent on advanced technology that can be attacked than any other.

It does not surprise me they are testing methods to fight back.

 

Trust me, the Russian GRU already knew it long before the article.

 

Where is the collusion here?

 

I struggle sometimes with my countries and both sides of the isles hypocrisy. We cry to the rooftops and have a 100 officials damning Russia messing with Facebook and " meddling with elections " with FB and other harmless and non impacting social media trolling but we are ok with us using hyper aggressive and damaging cyber attacks to shutdown powergrids which could result in loss of life..

The US would declare war on Russia if they did this to us. We would.

Arrogant stupidity

 

Moralistic accusations of "hypocrisy" have no place in geopolitics, or in politics. Both sides are going to paint the other as monstrous and their own as angelic, always.

Not that I'm against accusations of hypocrisy. It would be very wise of the Russians to point out the hypocrisy here, and they already are.

 

YES. AND The US pumped $5 billion into Ukraine to destabilize the country which resulted in a coup. BTW China paid for a 5 page spread in a newspaper in IA before the mid terms to harm the GOP regarding trade. Not a peep out of the MSM about China interfering with our elections.

 

No doubt it was meant to 'jam' the meeting between Trump and Putin. Any hindrance to the President's ability to better relations between the US and Russia would be detrimental to the security of our nation and the well being of the American people so of course it's treason.

 

P.utin on Reported US Attacks on Russian Power Grid: We Are Forced to React.

In response to a caller in his direct line phone in session Vladimir Putin said:

"As far as the work of our critical infrastructure and energy is concerned...we need to think about how to protect ourselves from cyber attacks, from any negative actions. And we are not only thinking about it, but doing something about it," he added.

In the meantime, the provider Rostelecom reported that it repelled two powerful cyberattacks on the call center during Thursday's broadcast.

Hmmm, now who could be so stupid and reckless?

Nah!

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