What should be the US reaction to the recent cyberattack?

[BeBMan]

From what I read it's on a rather big scale, began in march and is still ongoing, and they will need months if not more to get systems (both gov and private sector) clean again.

As of now three possible reactions come to my mind:

1. Golfing, helps in every situation

2. Tweeting, showing that kind of tech-powers will impress them hackers.

3. Ignoring it, cyber attacks will magically go away like Covid

[Sugarrynad]

I guess, most people now take their rants on twitter. So instead of tweeting that, more will likely to post some rants about it.

[BeBMan]

To expand on the OP, I'd prefer noone to launching WW3 about it. Which is unlikely anyway...

Under Obama sanctions were upped already, but there seems to be a limit for it (namely that it's difficult to find something new to sanction if so much already is), and they didn't seem to deter anyone.

Now there's talk of retaliating with own cyber attacks to deter furture attacks. Which could work, or just escalate more and more (and even moar).

Maybe on the plus side it's the future of intl conflict, less shooting, more cyber

[giblets]

Call it Fake News, then it no longer exists.

[Thoth]

Pick a third world country, fabricate some evidence and invade them is the traditional US response.

Why **** with a tried and true formula?

[-Jrabbit]

I fully expect Trump to try to spin this as somehow being the reason he lost the election.
As if this happening on his watch is somehow a reason that he should stay in office.

[BeBMan]

Dunno, he kinda boxed himself in since he declined to make any even remotely neg. comment about Russia in the last yrs. For reasons still not fully known...

However, whatever the reasons it would be quite a u-turn for him.

Otoh it's not like he's a prime example for consistent argument, so maybe he will do if he thinks it helps him....

[giblets]

Trump moved cyber security budget to pay for his wall before major hacking assault

A former FBI deputy has alleged that President Trump has been diverting money from cybersecurity resources to build a wall at a time when the “nation is under attack”.

Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday about a report published in Politico that revealed that hackers accessed systems at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI deputy director for counterintelligence, said that the reason such attacks are occurring is that the budget for cybersecurity under the Trump administration had been squeezed in order to prioritise other things.

“Make no mistake, our nation is under attack and it appears to be ongoing,” said Mr Figliuzzi. “How does something like this happen of this magnitude? Where 300,000 clients of a private company are potentially impacted including the most sensitive agencies in our government, it is because the Russias were able to find a single point of failure in our supply chain.”

“Meaning this product that comes from SolarWinds is a network management product used by too many, quite frankly, of all government agencies and too many of our top telecommunications companies. Ten of which were compromised as far as we know — so far. So, it is a larger issue, Nicolle, of supply chain management.”

He also said that it’s more than merely an intelligence failure but rather “it’s a national defense failure.”

“This is the defence of our nation and systems and failure to oversee our supply chain in a form of allowing one company to service so many of our government agencies,” he said.

“The Russians found that weakness and exploited it and we’re still learning the extent of the damage and Natasha reported that hour now our nuclear components have been impacted and one of the words that jumped out there the reporting is damaged.”

On Thursday, Politico reported that the Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the US nuclear weapons stockpile, found out that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agencies.

Mr Figliuzzi explaining why he thinks the cybersecurity resources lack sufficient funds said: “We have a president diverting money, billions of it, to build a wall, changing personnel at the top of the Pentagon and we’ve not heard word one about the plan or strategy to respond to this ongoing attack.”

He says such attacks are happening more often because “there is no one in charge from the Oval Office down throughout the intelligence community.”

“It’s just like 9/11 we're going to need congressional oversight and increase to figure out what in Heaven's name has happened who is in charge where did the failures occur and we need oversight and coordination like never before.

He also warned that troubles are waiting for the president-elect who will have to take cyberattacks more seriously. “This is Warfare and Battlefield, and it means that Joe Biden on day one is going to be fighting another kind of virus the Cyber kind.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-cybersecurity-fbi-russian-hackers-b1776007.html

I expect the Republicans to say this is the Democrats' fault for not paying for the wall.

[Dauphin]

Cooler heads should have just told him they built the (fire)wall like he always wanted.

[Ming]

Trump, the Russian minion, will do nothing. He will leave it to the next Admin, just like everything else.
And whatever the Dems do, it will be wrong in his mind and he will tweet about it like a whiny school girl

[Dauphin]

I think you are being unkind to schoolgirls.

[N35t0r]

Can you imagine, if this had happened to Obama, how all the Republicans would be at his throat constantly?

[Ted Striker]

He’s not only not responding to the attack, he is COVERING for it, just squashing an announcement condemning Russia