"Russian Hackers Target U.S. Government Agencies" Topic

"Multiple news reports from this past weekend indicate that hackers working for Russian intelligence breached networks and monitored email traffic at a number of U.S. federal agencies – including the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – as well as numerous businesses and the cybersecurity firm FireEye. The massive scope of the breach reflects the scale of the cybersecurity challenges facing the incoming administration.

Investigators uncovered the campaign, which dates at least to the spring of 2020, while investigating a hack of FireEye's systems. After publicly acknowledging the breach, FireEye reportedly shared information on the hack with Microsoft and the National Security Agency (NSA) in order to determine how the hackers accessed FireEye's network. An analysis of the data revealed that the hackers compromised SolarWinds' Orion software, a network-management service…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Yes, it's all over the media. But short of doing it back to them. Maybe sanctions, etc. Not much else to do short of a shoot'n war, AFAIK …

Hackers Targeted US Nuclear Weapons Agency…

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Amicalement
Armand

Yeah that was on the news too … And Putin and the Russians deny it … as usual …

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I hope we hit them back, hard.

This needs to stop, now.

Sanctions, hacking, and even asymmetrical military strikes, if needed.

Same goes for the Chinese, Iranians, and any other hackers around the globe.

If we don't want to go to war, which I'd say we're already in, since I consider hacking to be a quasi-military attack backed by the government, then hire some Mossad agents, and/or other effective contractors and kill the perpetrators like the Israelis have done to their enemies in their own home countries, where they apparently feel safe from retribution.

That'll put some real fear into them, and perhaps some will think twice about the line of work they are in.

Lots of bad things can happen unexpectedly: cars and planes crashing, ships sinking, homes and apartments blowing up, energy grids going off-line, railroad lines being sabotaged, etc., etc..

We can play hardball in the shadow wars realm too.

And whatever we are doing or planning to do is classified. Much of what is heard in the media may well be disinformation …

We must first decide whether there was such an attack, who exactly attacked, whether it was a retaliatory measure to the US attacks)))
And all of your described countermeasures can work great in both directions)))

By the way, information from a Russian pro-Western source:
The White House "at the last minute" refused to publish an official statement accusing Russia of a massive hacker attack. Reported by The Associated Press.
On the eve of the current President Donald Trump said that the media exaggerated the scale of what happened. He disagreed with the assertions of a number of publications that a group of hackers working for Moscow could be behind the cyber attack, and admitted that Beijing could be involved in it.

Come on, attack Russia in response to China's actions. Are you sure this will benefit the United States?

Aren't you afraid of being deceived again?

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Well that's the thing isn't it.
Some sort of cyber attack happens.
There are no smoking weapons or prisoners to interrogate.
Who does one strike back at?

Asymettrical military strikes?
You mean send delta to shoot someone?

IMO hacking should be returned in kind. Only bigger and better … Save "wet" work for a very last resort … if need be …

In some cases, I understand that it can be difficult to determine who and/or where the attacks are coming from.

In others, apparently they can identify the city, building, floor, room, and even the hackers by name, so……..in the latter cases it shouldn't be too hard to "neutralize" them, preferably with extreme prejudice.

I get that Legion, but in my opinion, why not raise the ante to send a strong message to others, and to perhaps even eliminate it to some degree, altogether.

If they want to play asymmetrical warfare, we need to show them we CAN too.

Make them really worry about what asymmetrical options we choose to REALLY hurt or cripple them, up to and including taking them out, permanently.

Ah, the msm loves a good little war to cover; it drives up ratings and that's all they care about. The military-industrial swamp of neocons is celebrating in Washington as well. As the economy implodes over the plandemic the political swamp will need to divert attention from their own ineptness and create a distraction; time for another war.

I get that Legion, but in my opinion, why not raise the ante to send a strong message to others, and to perhaps even eliminate it to some degree, altogether.

Yes, but we don't want to start tossing missiles and bombs, especially not WMDs. HE would be fine if that was a workable solution. I'm not sure it is no matter how surgical …

As I said on another thread, this should go for the Russians as well as the PRC/CCP. I'm sure the examples mentioned for the PRC can be found for Putin's Russia just replace PRC with Russia … Albeit Putin is more likely the #2 Threat as we know.

If nothing else the PRC/CCP has demonstrated they are the #1 Threat to the USA and much of the free world. Everyone from the PRC who is on a work visa, student visa, etc., etc. needs to be sent home and no others from the PRC/CCP allowed in the USA at this time. They have been stealing everything from us for decades.

Xenophobic ? Not IMO with all the information that has been brought to light recently. E.g. Besides the well known Chinese spy and congressman relationship. And intel say there are many more. Down to even city mayors.

A well known very senior member of congress[who should have hung up the saddle a long time ago], had a PRC spy working on staff for about 20 years[!!!?!?!?!]!

They must be brought to account … somehow … And since they are on the UN's P5, the UN will be more useless than normal.

As always, life is more complicated. Most of governments are actively engaged in cyberwarfare, but a real threat are progamms/attacks that can cripple the operations of power plants, military and civilian hardware, etc. Spying programms are there for decades, and if we look at how this case is described, it started several years ago.

I don't know, if Russia was involved in this case – if we were, it would be a classified info with very limited access.
However, when the (in)famous Petya/notPetya hit the world several years ago, all countries blamed its operation on each other. Several biggest Russian state companies were hit at that time – Rosneft, biggest bank – Sberbank, biggest petrochemical producer – Nizhnekamsk, so it was either a huge collateral damage, or smb else who did it.

And just the same time as the news about "attack" emerged

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It might even be a fight between security sotware providers, as one of them found a security breach in another company product in "Russia" case.

Regardless … it will eventually be found out who did this and there will be punitives of some type. When it comes to this type of attack fingers are pointed at "all the usual suspects". And yes Putin's Russia and the PRC/CCP are at the top of that list. For a few simple reasons. They have done it before and both wish the USA "ill will" to say the very least. One way or another. Until it appears otherwise … they are on the blame line.

And as any LEO knows, all suspects are "innocent", etc., etc.😎 … yeah … right. 🤩🤔 "Tell it to the judge!" …