Diplomacy

Well Russian hackers are all the rage these days. Attach anything to Russian hackers today and the left eats it up. I suppose since the hill lost the election due to RH'ers those evil russkies are the root of evil now. I'll bet anything that RH'ers fall out of vogue and won't be heard from by the media in a month or two.

...because an infected laptop computer owned by an 'electrical company' is the same as Russia infecting the US Electrical Grid. I've got news for PJ. There are millions of infected computers out there in the real world....Even some owned by 'Electrical Companies' and worse. I bet some are even owned by companies like GE who have a hand in the US Nuclear Power business....Armed with this information, perhaps PJ can claim the Russians have inserted malware into our Nuclear Power infrastructure. Come on PJ...Our PC's are infected. Infected by criminals. Infected by foreign powers. Infected by malcontents.

Oh and I don't remember PJ complaining when the Chinese Government hacked the Office of Personnel Management and stole background information on 21 Million Americans. Or when they Hacked the FDIC last month. Where are the calls for sanctions? Why are we not expelling their diplomats? I guess that just doesn't rise to the level of malware on some corporate laptop not connected to the grid. Perhaps PJ should find himself a safe room. It's dangerous out here in the wild.

It's really too bad President Obama gave up US control of the Internet Naming Authority though. Maybe we could have instituted some meaningful countermeasures....like eliminating the IP addresses of ISPs or VPNs or individuals or regions or countries that are using the Internet for malicious purposes...like terrorism.

It seems this Burlington Electric electrical-grid malware attack was, in fact, "Fake News" after all. There were no Russians; there was no malware; the whole "episode" was simply an employee checking his e-mail with his company computer triggering an alert.

From The Washington Post:
********quote*****
As federal officials investigate suspicious Internet activity found last week on a Vermont utility computer, they are finding evidence that the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility, according to experts and officials close to the investigation.

An employee at Burlington Electric Department was checking his Yahoo email account Friday and triggered an alert indicating that his computer had connected to a suspicious IP address associated by authorities with the Russian hacking operation that infiltrated the Democratic Party. Officials told the company that traffic with this particular address is found elsewhere in the country and is not unique to Burlington Electric, suggesting the company wasn’t being targeted by the Russians. Indeed, officials say it is possible that the traffic is benign, since this particular IP address is not always connected to malicious activity.
*****endquote*****

Possible Solutions:
Solution 1: Call out the FBI; blame the President-Elect for Russian computer hacking; publish news of the "attack" nationwide in the newspapers-of-record..
Solution 2: Instruct employees not to use their company laptops to access personal e-mails.

The Washington Post & PJ now have about as much credibility as Alex Jones. In the words of our President Elect....Sad.