Russia and Hacking: The Question We Should be Asking

(The following is a personal opinion piece)

As of this writing there has been a ton of news articles about Russia hacking major American infrastructure and government agencies.  Not to mention top ten telecommunications providers along with a plethora of fortune 500 companies in the states.  This is massive. [1]

It is not an overnight task launching an attack as expansive as this.  No doubt about it, this was something long in the making.  In this article I am not going to go into depth about the attack, likely you are already aware of it and have read a technical analysis of the attack.  The attack raises an important question though:

Why Now?

If you spend any amount of time in the cyber security world you will know that nation state attacks have been going on for along time.  America to Russia, Russia to America, every once and awhile throw a little bit of China in their for flavour. etc. etc etc.

I am going on an assumption here that America and Russia have known for years that they have been resident in each others networks.  

Stay with me here.  We haven't boarded the one way train ride to crazy town just yet ;)

The digital space, the cyber-space. Is this wonderful, strange, for the most part unregulated entity that people from across the planet can access and reach out and touch one another.

It's a dangerous place where you can get hurt as well.  It is loaded with bad actors....and good actors.  For the most part cyber-space is held together by people(volunteers) with sound moral compasses keeping this digital world in check.  Currently the internet exists in this idyllic bubble where information is free and available.  It is this innocence that has paved the way for nations to try to volley for control. 

America birthed the internet and big players (Russia/China) have been playing catch up.  America has been a/the dominant controller of the internet since it's conception.

Indeed Russia and friends have been in a virtual race with America since the beginning *cough *cough *cold war.

So lets go back the the question: Why now?

They (R and A) know they are hacking each other, why is this news now?  Why is this public now?  What is happening in history right now that warrants it being released to the masses?

There are a couple pieces that need to be weighed here.  Was America truly caught with it's proverbial pants down?  Did they really not have any idea how bad it was?  Because if that is true, we should all be scared.  

There is a secret war for cyber-space waging every day. 

I think that we are living in a time where R and C are finally catching up to A.  

America has lost it's dominance in the cyber realm.  Or at least a portion of the pie.

The cause of why America lost it's dominance is a topic that is just to expansive for the scope of this article, even this blog.  Long story short though, it is hard for a house to stand when it's foundation is crumbling.

So Why Now?  The conspiratorial side of me is showing his face a bit here, but I don't think any of this was a accident.  I think that these hacks did happen.  I think that when it was revealed to the public it was no accident though.  What a curious coincidence that this news is revealed as Biden begins taking office.  Also take note that a few short days before this was published the Trump administrations closed the last remaining American consulates in Russia [2].

The fallout from the hack is something that people should be watching.

I know I will.

Always ask questions.

Andrew Campbell



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/suspected-russian-hackers-spied-on-us-federal-agencies

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/18/politics/us-consulates-russia-closures/index.html

Popular Posts