For the past several weeks, more and more information has been leaking out about how thoroughly Russian hackers have infiltrated government systems. With Donald Trump pretending not to believe in the malevolence of Russian actions in 2016 and constantly waving off reports that Russia was still heavily engaged in testing inadequate defenses, it’s no surprise that Russia has been essentially everywhere. That includes critical areas of both Homeland Security and the State Department. These were not attempted hacks: These were successful hacks that allowed Russian agents to leverage network-managed software to gain widespread access to some of what were suppose to be the most secure—and most essential—systems.
The limits of the espionage effort have still not been determined, but they definitely can get worse than Russian agents looking in on agencies that both plan for national security and coordinate foreign policy. They can get worse in the sense that Russian hackers also found their way into the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons.
As Politico reports, information officers at the Department of Energy identified “suspicious activity” in not just the Nuclear Security Administration, but at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Sandia National Lab, Los Alamos National Lab, and the Office of Secure Transportation. That would seem to indicate Russia had been peeking in on everything from how U.S. weapon systems are designed and how they are built, to where they are stored. U.S. specialists are now examining network traffic, trying to determine just what Russia has learned, and whether any access remains.
In addition to learning the how and where of the nation’s nuclear weapon stockpile, Russian intrusions into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may be aimed at taking control of at least part of the national electrical grid. As Politico notes, “FERC doesn't directly manage any power flows, but it does store sensitive data on the grid that could be used to identify the most disruptive locations for future attacks.”
Peering into America’s electrical grid follows on previous hacks that apparently looked at information on oil and gas storage, production, and reserves. The combination of data accessed would seem to provide Russia a near-perfect roadmap to disabling America’s sources of electricity and transportation.
By disregarding the threat from Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump left the door wide open for Russian agents to seek and obtain the most vital information the nation controls. If Russia has gained certain knowledge about critical national security and power infrastructure, it could represent a genuine threat that could be exploited either by Russia directly, or by providing the information to terrorists.
Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, it’s become common practice to disregard the whole possibility of a war between the “great powers.” That conflict should be unthinkable. But it’s not impossible, especially when one side displays such abject incompetence.