For months, Russian hackers have been racing around inside systems at the highest levels of the U.S. government, exploiting a weakness in “SolarWinds” networking software that went completely unnoticed until it was pointed out by a third party. Those hacks have included intrusions into systems that contain critical information about the nation’s power grid, as well as those having stewardship over the nuclear stockpile. All the while, Donald Trump has refused to even mention Russia (outside of repeating lies about the Mueller investigation) and is even promising to veto a national defense spending bill that includes a program to fight Russian cyber warfare.
So when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted on Friday that Russia was behind the widespread hacks, it should not be news. After all, this has been in the news for over a week. It affects at least half a dozen federal agencies. And there is no doubt about the origin of the attacks.
But in the Trump White House, just getting an admission that Russia can do something wrong, is an effort.
As CNN reports, Pompeo let slip that Russia is at fault on the radio show of right wing talker Mark Levin. Pompeo also admitted that Russia did more than just read emails and make off with files.
"Suffice it to say, there was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems and it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world as well," Pompeo said.
An early review of Russia’s effort has detected that there was an effort to implant software that would have allowed them to easily seize control of systems at a future date. However, it remains unclear if this, or other efforts, were successful. Russia may in fact have implanted time bombs that could erase or alter data. They have have inserted back doors that allow them to access the networks through other means, even after the original flaw is replaced.
Finding out what has been done is made even more difficult, because the company to first detect the issue was FireEye. They’re a cybersecurity firm, and they noticed the Russian intrusion only after Russian agents made off a large part of FireEye’s own tool kit for … detecting intrusions and evaluating compromised systems.
The intrusions were not minor, and have been described as nothing less than an act of war. Trump has said nothing. Pompeo has not said much more.
"I can't say much more as we're still unpacking precisely what it is, and I'm sure some of it will remain classified," he added.
Last spring, Trump was made aware that Russia was paying bounties for the murder of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Months later, Trump continued to pass off the story as a “hoax,” even though he had been briefed on it repeatedly.