US Officials 'Strategically Leak' That US Is Ready To Hack Russia If It Interferes With Election

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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