US Officials 'Strategically Leak' That US Is Ready To Hack Russia If It Interferes With Election
from the oh-come-on dept
For the past few months, we've been covering the increasingly eager stance of some in the "cybersecurity" and government worlds to proactively launch offensive cyberattacks on Russia. Going all the way back to the early summer, when Russia's role in any hacks was totally speculative, some were already advocating for "cyberwar" as a response. As we reached the fall, suddenly it was leaked that many inside the government were getting itchy trigger fingers to launch some sort of digital attack. And, government officials really seemed to rely on the ever gullible reporters at NBC to push this story.So it comes as little surprise that NBC has the rather clumsily, if strategically linked news that the US government is all ready to cause cyber havoc on Russia if it does anything serious to interfere with US elections. Think, for just a second, how people in the government and national security worlds would react if someone like Ed Snowden leaked the following bit of info:
U.S. military hackers have penetrated Russia's electric grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin's command systems, making them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the U.S. deem it necessary, according to a senior intelligence official and top-secret documents reviewed by NBC News.But, of course, since it's the US government leaking this info, no one seems to care. Of course, that's because everyone knows what's going on here. This is US officials basically telling Russia: "Hey, don't mess with our election or we'll do some cyber stuff." The claim that the US has hacked into Russian systems is certainly believable. That's what the NSA does after all (y'know, when it's not collecting info on Americans).
But the whole story is just silly posturing in a weird election year filled with silly posturing about hacks and cyberwar. Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow, but it would be nice if it didn't involve any nation state feeling the need to break out "cyber weapons" for any reason.
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Filed Under: cyberwar, election, hack, hack back, leaks, nsa, russia
Companies: nbc
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Dangerous game.
So now if, say, a Russian missile were to take out a civilian target they can blame it on the US government. The US did, after all, admit that they had hacked the Russian systems.Subscribe: RSS
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No worries, Russia has what, a couple thousand people in the entire country? It's all frozen up there, there can't be that many people can there?
I mean this might be a disaster in waiting if we were talking about a country willing and able to stand up to the USG and return the favor if the USG picked a fight, but with a tiny country like Russia it's not like there's any risk of that, so it's hardly a case of idiot politicians trying to act tough and gungho, without realizing that the other side is fully capable of fighting back if they push it too far.
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Here, let me cyber- that for you.
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Has no one heard of "gladio"
And if the FBI takes over a year to figure out the anti-goth cult who's gonna be the "qualified voice" to "prove" the 'hacking'?
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Dangerous game.
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msg from a hacker
if you want you can/
remember you don't always get what you want.....
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I am worried about Trump...
Except the Obama Admin is doing the same fucking thing?
O wait... I keep forgetting, every nation eternally spies on and hacks the others anyways.
Why is this even news? Next?
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I sure hope they will go after this senior intelligence official for leaking a top-secret document they way they went after Snowden and others.
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What it really comes down to ...
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The election is being hacked...
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Re: The election is being hacked...
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Re: The election is being hacked...
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Also claiming that we have hacked into Russia's infrastructure will only make them look into it and if they do they are likely to find the exploit being used and patch it and remove any infiltrating software. The Russians aren't dumb, not by a long shot.
Also, isn't the U.S. supposed to be a bastion of free speech? Now they are trying to suppress Russia's free speech with threats? Really?
If Russia says/releases something that changes the outcome of the election it's not Russia's fault, it's the faults of the candidates for being so vulnerable to such attacks. They should have taken a more favorable stance or not done whatever it is that changed the election outcomes.
Furthermore any leaked information that would change an election outcome is probably knowledge that the public should know for that very reason, so that we can determine who the best candidate is. The fact that the U.S. wants to suppress information that may change an election outcome is evidence that the reason they are suppressing such info has little to do with the public interest and more to do with avoiding embarrassment and preventing the public from making informed decisions.
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Response to: I.T. Guy on Nov 7th, 2016 @ 6:50am
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There is a typo, TechDirt was hacked!
Time to call out the cyber forces and fill all comment sections with spam.
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Re: The election is being hacked...
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Power Outages
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The Right Way To Vote
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Re: Dangerous game.
We no longer have access to the drones, their programming has been altered to no longer respond to our command codes, they have been flown to an unknown location.
We believe that the terrorists used vulnerabilities in our system created by hackers employed by the United States to seize control of our drones, and we are currently demanding full disclosure from the Americans regarding any involvement they have in our computer systems...
In the meantime, Russia is in a state of emergency, and our air force will remain on full alert until such time the drones have been recaptured or destroyed...
...What do you MEAN they've been spotted in the United States?! Did those hackers put the vulnerabilities in our system to steal our...wait, what, the drones are bombing the Americans?...Huh, irony."
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DUN DUN DDDDUN
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Re: The Right Way To Vote
Unless the votes are then counted by machines with little to no security features.
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Как пользоватся програмой ?
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