If you’ve been following all of the developments related to the upcoming presidential elections in the United States, then you might have heard some people say that Russia is trying to hack the United States to try and influence the elections in some way. It’s normal to see allegations of hacking fly back and forth between the two rivals but a new report suggests that the United States is considering to cripple critical Russian infrastructure with cyberattacks should it try to interfere with the election.
Citing a senior intelligence source, NBC News reports that Russia might try to influence the vote itself by launching sophisticated cyberattacks which could undermine the entire process.
The scribe reports that U.S. cyberwarfare agents are capable of hacking critical Russian infrastructure if they find enough evidence to ascertain that a Russian cyberattack is an attempt to disrupt the election in a “significant way.” Critical infrastructure includes the power grid, telecommunications, and command systems.
Just exactly how that will be done is obviously not going to be revealed to the public. However, reports suggest that the U.S. government has made “back channel” contact with the Russians to get them to back off on the elections.
It can’t really be said how much of this is the actual truth and how much is a fairly convenient media leak, but concerns about Russia meddling with the U.S. elections in one way or another do exist and there will obviously be some level of preparation there to tackle the challenges effectively.
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