This is not a first. The USA made a nearly identical claim in this retracted story in 2016:<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-vermont/2016/12/30/8fc90cc4-ceec-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russi...</a><p><i>A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials.</i><p>... but ...<p><i>Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.</i><p>Generally speaking, anonymously sourced stories in western news outlets about Russian hacking have a very high propensity to collapse or get quietly retracted days later. The DHS is particularly notorious for this: they also claimed Russia hacked various election related systems in multiple states, but the states themselves investigated and said the DHS was wrong.<p>I cite some more examples in this blog post:<p><a href="https://blog.plan99.net/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D0%B0-6e24757a67ba" rel="nofollow">https://blog.plan99.net/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D0%B0...</a><p>Glenn Greenwald also wrote extensively about this problem.<p>So now we have an "unprecedented" story sourced to anonymous officials in the DHS, making the entirely false claim that this is the first time US officials have accused Russia of hacking the electrical grid. The cited evidence is a Symantec report that didn't name anyone in particular.<p>Is it possible Russia is doing this? Of course. I would be, if I were Putin. But I'd also be doing it if I were the leader of Iran or North Korea or China. Perhaps all of them are doing it.<p>Regardless of the truth, this sort of story should have no credibility with anyone by now. There have been far too many false stories about Russian hacking published for them to carry weight.
I feel like we're playing a dangerous game, escalating towards war. We've interfered with each other's elections dating back to the cold war. I'm not saying it's moral, but we should maybe reexamine our own actions and what we're willing to sacrifice before asking for things [extraditions] for things we're also guilty of.
I've just finished watching the Stuxnet documentary. State funded attacks on critical infrastructure are going to be a world-wide norm. No matter how good your security, you will be vulnerable eventually. We'll have to go back to analogue style systems to be protected.
Anyone interested in seeing the, "proof" that Russia was responsible can see it here:<p><a href="https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A" rel="nofollow">https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A</a><p>As with virtually every other accusation of "Russian hacking", there is actually nothing presented suggesting that it was Russians that performed these hacks, let alone conclusively proving that. The line of "reasoning" used to accuse Russia of being responsible is, yet again, the same bit of tired tripe. It boils down to, "this attack uses methods that we suspect Russians have used in the past, and we assert that Russians would have liked to do this hack, therefore we have proof that it was Russians".<p>>Malicious email campaigns dating back to late 2015 were used to gain entry into organizations in the United States, Turkey and Switzerland, and likely other countries, Symantec said at the time, though it did not name Russia as the culprit.<p>In other words, these were generic fishing attacks that could have been performed by anyone. Since anyone and everyone uses these fishing attacks, we had no idea who it was in 2015. However, now that everyone is blaming everything on Russia, we can safely do so without even casual scrutiny of our claims.
Rather than discussion about technical aspects, we get a spew of how innocent Russia is and how America deserves it.<p>If the west now can't even defend its technical discussion forums from totalitarian disruption, heaven help it.
If I leave my door unlocked can I really blame <bad person> for opening my door and robbing me? Why dont I invest in door locks? The US should really look into a more security focused infrastructure. This year the bad guy is Russia, but last year it was China and next year maybe it will be Iranian hackers. I understand that security is constant game of cat and mouse but when I see and hear of companies running Wimdows XP in 2018... it's like we're not even trying. Might as well leave the doors unlocked.
That Russia is acting like a spoiled country is not much in doubt. What I hope doesn't happen is a needless tit-for-tat escalation. I think much of this goes back to the ill-conceived and ill fated "Reset" with Clinton (at the behest of Obama). For whatever reason Putin and Obama didn't get along.<p>I'm hopeful that cold-war warriors don't dominate the policies to come. If we (they and us) take that tack, we're in for a bad stretch. I'm hoping the current administration is capable of bucking the Russophobia the Dems are so attached to and committed to, mostly for internal political reasons.<p>Let's get real, deal with Russia as the adversary it is, but in a level-headed manner. Let's face it, they do not care about sanctions. One Bit. They will survive with or without the rest of the world but we get to deal with their blow back.<p>Obama granted N Korea's Kim more respect than he did Putin. I think that was a grave mistake on his part and we're now paying for this slight with these passive-aggressive moves.