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By SecureWorld News Team
Mon | Jun 17, 2019 | 11:48 AM PDT

The New York Times just made significant cybersecurity news.

It claims the United States has placed computer code within Russia's power grid that will allow the U.S. to take drastic action if deemed necessary.

This comes after years of warnings that Russia is trying to and/or has infiltrated the U.S. power grid so it can use those powers to take the West offline. 

If accurate, it sounds like the cyberwar version of the nuclear arms race, where equal power equals deterrence.

Has the U.S. hacked the Russian power grid?

Multiple anonymous sources revealed this previously unknown strategy to The Times over the last three months. And in part, the paper says, this is a result of new and concentrated cyber powers in the U.S.

The administration declined to describe specific actions it was taking under the new authorities, which were granted separately by the White House and Congress last year to United States Cyber Command, the arm of the Pentagon that runs the military’s offensive and defensive operations in the online world.

But in a public appearance on Tuesday, President Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said the United States was now taking a broader view of potential digital targets as part of an effort "to say to Russia, or anybody else that’s engaged in cyberoperations against us, 'You will pay a price.'"

Russia Today network laughs at revelation

As you can imagine, RT—which is the state-run Russia Today news network—wasted no time calling the U.S. government and American media outlets hypocrites as it cited the NYT report:

"In the absence of details, the Times treated its readers to a carousel of security officials talking up their 'aggressive' posture, including one faceless intelligence spook who bragged 'We are doing things at a scale we never contemplated a few years ago.' A chorus of these same officials also justified the cyberwar efforts, including one who dropped the wonderfully Washingtonian term 'defend forward' to describe the incursions.

But imagine for a second that the shoe were on the other foot? How would the Times cover a sophisticated Russian effort to infiltrate the US grid? How massive would the media uproar be?"

And RT also claimed Western media wrongly paints Russia as some kind of monster. It specifically calls out MSNBC's Rachel Maddow:

"The heavyweight champion of fearmongering and conspiracies was undoubtedly MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Night after night, Maddow detailed new and sinister Russian ploys to interfere in elections, undermine democracy, and even freeze Americans to death in their homes."

That last part about freezing Americans in their homes is something that has openly been talked about in U.S. security circles as an example of where cybersecurity and physical security intersect.

If Russia does take part of the U.S. power grid offline in a winter cold snap or summer heatwave, lives could be lost.

More evidence of U.S. getting more aggressive on cyber

In addition to hearing about this topic at SecureWorld conferences around North America, we have reported on a toughening stance around cyber warfare. This includes indictments against a CIA insider threat, against Chinese nationals, and against Russian hackers.

We also reported last year on this shift in 5 Cyber Consequences and a Warning to Digital Foes.

At the time, then Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen told an audience of cybersecurity professionals at the RSA Conference:

"Our digital lives depend on cyber deterrence. I have a newsflash for America’s adversaries. Complacency is being replaced by consequences. Cyber is not just a target, it is also a weapon."

A weapon that is apparently being used by the U.S. in more ways than ever before.

China and Russia: what they want from cyberwar

And as long as we're talking about cyber-adversaries, it's helpful to remember each adversary has its own endgame, its own goal for cyber attacks.

Col. Cedric Leighton (USAF, Ret.) is a keynote speaker and CNN Military Analyst. Listen to his two-minute explanation on what China is after with its cyber operations and what Russia is after with its cyber operations. There's a major difference:

 

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