How will US respond to Russian hackers?

The Russian hackers are back at their keyboards again. On the mid-December weekend, US experts discovered the attacks.

Russian hackers are using sophisticated techniques to steal sensitive information.

The US cybersecurity experts are said to be in a panic, but the question is what is America going to do to shut down the infiltrating spies?

One national security official described the atmosphere within the government as “chaos,” forcing cybersecurity workers to scramble to pick up the pieces over the weekend.

Closely involved in investigating the attack is the US Cyber Command, a military combatant command charged with pursuing US enemies in cyberspace.

The government has reportedly fingered APT29, or Advanced Persistent Threat 29, sometimes called Cozy Bear, a Russia hacking group associated with the Kremlin’s foreign intelligence service, SVR, as the culprit.

Cozy Bear has also been tied to spying on COVID-19 vaccine data as well as US and foreign government agencies and think tanks.

One congressional aide explained that “We’re honestly just trying to get a handle on what it all means and what or how much was stolen or made vulnerable.” By Monday night, the Washington Post reported that the State Department and the National Institutes of Health were also among the victims.

Cyber security experts fear the ramifications of the attack could be “really, really bad,” said one national security official, referring to the scope of access the attackers had to entire networks for months and months before being detected.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is working closely with agency partners in regard to recently discovered activity on government networks.

CISA has been in upheaval in recent weeks. On Nov. 17, President Trump fired Chris Kreb, CISA’s director, for debunking conspiracy theories relating to the 2020 presidential election.

The attack appears not to be just about spying but should also be defined as “industrial espionage” against US companies according to Rosa Smothers, a mer CIA cyberthreat analyst.

Likely the situation will be left to the incoming Biden administration to determine how to respond.

“It clearly will be a continuing issue in a Biden administration,” former top US cyber diplomat Chris Painter, who has served in government with many of Biden’s incoming national security officials, said.

“If anything, (this breach) is a clarion call that cybersecurity is a major issue,” he concluded, “and it needs to be treated as a major national security and economic issue.” for