That's a chilling portrayal of an escalation in the cyber attacks from Russia that so far in the US have been 'limited' to the 2016 presidential election. An attack on a US utility by Russian hackers would certainly be considered an act of war and many already concur the election attack was an act of war.
The Trump assaults on the intelligence community seen in the light of the intelligence community as protectors against Russian aggression are alarming. If Trump succeeds in diminishing the intelligence community's ability to protect our infrastructure then we are enormously vulnerable. With Trump potentially providing cover for Putin and the Russians we are doubly vulnerable.
<<And the blackouts weren’t just isolated attacks. They were part of a digital blitzkrieg that has pummeled Ukraine for the past three years—a sustained cyberassault unlike any the world has ever seen. A hacker army has systematically undermined practically every sector of Ukraine: media, finance, transportation, military, politics, energy. Wave after wave of intrusions have deleted data, destroyed computers, and in some cases paralyzed organizations’ most basic functions. “You can’t really find a space in Ukraine where there hasn’t been an attack,” says Kenneth Geers, a NATO ambassador who focuses on cybersecurity.
In a public statement in December, Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, reported that there had been 6,500 cyberattacks on 36 Ukrainian targets in just the previous two months. International cybersecurity analysts have stopped just short of conclusively attributing these attacks to the Kremlin, but Poroshenko didn’t hesitate: Ukraine’s investigations, he said, point to the “direct or indirect involvement of secret services of Russia, which have unleashed a cyberwar against our country.” (The Russian foreign ministry didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.)...>>
Just as our intelligence community has verified that Putin was the ultimate authority for the 2016 election attack it follows that Putin was the decision maker in the Ukraine attacks as well. Again, puts the Trump submissive actions in Helsinki and a new light. |
