How worried should we be about the cyberattacks that the Russians have carried out for months?

Pretty worried, both on a micro scale and a macro scale.

Micro scale – we still don’t know what the Russians stole, and more importantly how they will make use of it. If the hacked 40+ government departments and countless corporations, they can do a lot of damage. I doubt that we (the American people) will ever know exactly how much was taken – but you can sure we will suffer from it.

Macro scale – how much of this was Putin taking advantage of the US (and Trump’s) lovefest with him? Did Trump overlook things because Putin and he get along so well? Was it US policy to give Russia a bye because Trump was enthralled with Putin?

There is lots of guilt to go around, and this is not good for the US and the next 5–10 years.

Reports say the infiltration began in March, so the attackers had months to work. On top of sensitive material being taken, a huge worry is that once they had broken in, they may have been able to set up more entry points for themselves.

VERY worried! Remember that Putin was a KGB agent.
Trump is a Russian sympathizer.

And Putin supporter Prez Trump !

—(NDAA is National Defense Authorization Act)—

“White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday that Trump still does plan to veto the NDAA. The president has threatened to hold up what’s considered must-pass legislation unless it would repeal a section of the Communications Decency Act that protects social media from being held liable for content posted on their platforms. He’s also taken issue with an amendment that would remove Confederate names from military bases.” . . . Federal News Network

“Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) fell short of saying the NDAA’s recommendations would have prevented the SolarWinds breach, but said the provisions would have at least given CISA the tools necessary to fight back against the ‘hack of the decade.’ ” . . . Federal News Network

@Tropical_Willie I believe I’ve read that they have the votes to override a veto of the NDAA but our sulking President is surely damaging our health and security. How anyone could still feel he has the interests of ordinary Americans at heart is truly beyond me.

Very. We have no idea of the extent of it, and how much was siphoning data versus how much was installing software tools that could be activated to some adverse purpose.

They’re not going to tell us.

What we do know is that it’s going to hurt.

And of course we are especially vulnerable right now, with the virus, the economic stress, and the thrashings of a wounded predator in the White House. Some number of people are already getting ready to blame it on the next president.

Looks bad.

But so far the porn sites are still working…

^^ I wonder why that is. ~

Trump and (Ras)Putin are buds, what’s surprising? Otherwise just business as usual in the Intel world. At any rate, what good is a secret if the enemy doesn’t know about it? They want to know how big a can of surprise whoop ass the US could open on them in a war scenario.

Worried and wondering what’s Putin’s idea of an endgame here?

Annoy the hell out of the US who he knows will never go to war over his messing with local elections or hacking until the US strikes deals granting him things he wants?

@mazingerz88
Putin wants the

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US to devolve into anarchy with “rednecks” shooting” at anyone of color.

Putin wants to see the breakdown of western democracy and the alliance of western powers. Nothing would please him better than to see the dissolution of the U.S., brought to its knees by internal strife and confusion. And hubris. Do you suppose he’s got a giant gauge posted in his office with a rising red line like a charity drive’s mercury thermometer to show how close he is to his goal?

I think it’s very worrisome. Hacking and also messaging across social media.

Anyone can opt out of social media. What do we do when it’s our national defense and commerce systems, just to name two?

I just read a posting from yahoo.com news that Trump raided the cybersecurity budget to pay for the wall. The damage he has done on so many fronts is incalculable.

@Jeruba Five years ago I didn’t think the interference in social media was something to worry about, because I felt like free speech and open forums can’t be controlled. Now, I see how the propaganda and trolling manipulates our population in a way that kills Americans (covid) and instigates division and unrest in the population. Dividing us is a way to destroy our country. The more extreme people get, the more extreme people will get. There is a snowball effect that is very worrisome.

A huge portion of our population doesn’t opt out of social media, rather they click more and more addicted to the emotions they feel when engaging in the medium.

Like I said, the hacking is very worrisome too. I’m not ignoring that.

I just read that trump is suggesting that it’s China, not Russia behind the attacks. Putin certainly has trump in his pocket.

@chyna Yeah – and that’s after Pompeo said it was Russia.

Watch Fareed Zakaria GPS today, Dec 20, 2020, about this topic.

Also, Mitt Romney was good on Meet The Press talking about the Russians, and as a side note, unrelated, see what he has to say about the Republican party.