The United States has finally succeeded in nullifying the cyber attacks on its 2016 presidential elections in the following way. As per a news report in NBC, the cyber security forces of the federal government penetrated into Russia’s electric grid, telecommunication networks and command & control systems early last week.
The media source leaks out the info that the fed took these precautionary steps in order to able to launch retaliatory cyber attacks if in case the Kremlin tries to target critical infrastructures during the election.
An unidentified senior official reported that if in case Russia dares to attack the event of US elections of 2016, then Washington is well prepared to shut down either partial or entire network of Russian power systems.
From the past few months, there were reports in social media and other media sources that some anonymous groups are trying to attack the US elections to rig the results in favor of a US election 2016 probable. This was followed by the email thefts and public disclosure of related data of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta.
Confirming this news was US President Barack Obama’s warning to Russian President Putin about interference in the election at their last meeting two months ago.
Maybe all these developments made the fed to take the necessary action in time to become proactive rather than reactive. Well, this is what the latest story of NBC suggests.
Now, with the election fever coming to an end and with Trump becoming the president of United States 2016, the upcoming administration will have to do a hard thinking on how to strengthen US government defenses against cyber attacks, energize private sector cyber security efforts and establish a credible deterrent in the cyber world.
