How

 

many times have I said:

"He's got the keys to the kingdom"?

Russia may be primed to hack America’s infrastructure

First of all

MAY BE?

Really?

"U.S. officials have previously accused Russia of infiltrating everything from American power plants to the Department of Defense.'

"...with tensions between the two nations skyrocketing, and U.S. sanctions against Russia looming, Putin could retaliate by launching powerful cyberattacks against the U.S. Such an attack could cut power to cities, shutter banks, and stop the flow of fuel, crippling whole swaths of the country.

 "attempts to intervene will be met by an immediate Russian response that "will lead you to such consequences that you have never faced in your history."

(Like Springsteen said on one of his live songs..."Don't touch the dial this is not a test!")

“I'm quite nervous about what is going to happen,” former-Ambassador to the U.N. Social and Economic Council Sarah Mendelson told Yahoo Finance.

“I have said to people we should expect something, and we should not panic if we have a cyberattack,” added Mendelson, who serves as the head of Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College in Washington, D.C.

(It's not going to be an attack, it's going to be an ongoing war.)

“We need to be prepared for the potential of foreign influence operations to negatively impact various aspects of our critical infrastructure with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine geopolitical tensions,” CISA (U.S Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security) Agency Director Jen Easterly said last week ahead of Russia’s invasion.

“There have been some infrastructure-based attacks where [Russia has] been caught breaking into dams and power plants and things like that in the U.S.,” explained NYU Tandon School of Engineering professor Justin Cappos. “It's possible that they're in substantial parts of U.S. infrastructure, and are sort of dormant and have capabilities that they haven't gone and exercised.”

(Possible? They embedded themselves so deep in our infrastructure via the Solar winds attack that we couldn't possibly root them out. Why? For just such a moment as this.)

According to Mendelson, if Russia launches a cyberattack against one of America’s NATO allies, the treaty’s mutual defense guarantee may force America to retaliate.

“[Putin] would like the United States to collapse,” she said. “He would like NATO to collapse. He would like the European Union to collapse. This is quite clear, and it's been clear for some time.”

While the physical attack on Ukraine unfolds, it would take just a few keystrokes for Russia to fire its cyber weapons at the U.S. And while it’s not the same as bullets and bombs, it could still be destructive enough to take out portions of the power grid, putting American lives at risk just the same.

“[Putin] would like the United States to collapse,” she said. “He would like NATO to collapse. He would like the European Union to collapse. This is quite clear, and it's been clear for some time.”

That former-Ambassador to the U.N. Social and Economic Council and current head of Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College in Washington, D.C. Sarah Mendelson knows this but seven defense and intelligence experts missed it in their yahoo interview?

Ought to alarm you.