For now, the United States’ most likely approach is to tread slowly and carefully toward any cyber conflict with Russia, three experts with experience in U.S. hacking operations told POLITICO — while hoping the Russians do the same
U.S. Cyber Command, launched in 2010 as part of the Defense Department, hacks networks for offensive operations related to battle. | Patrick Semansky, File/AP PhotoThe CIA and NSA have spent years burrowing into Russia’s critical computer networks to collect intelligence — and acquire access that President Joe Biden could seize on to order destructive cyberattacks on Vladimir Putin’s regime.
The U.S. also would most likely avoid going after civilian targets such as Russian citizens’ electricity, even in response to Russian cyberattacks on the United States or NATO. Instead, any U.S. action would be gradual, proportional and aimed at warning Russia to stop, said Robert M. Lee, who worked in cyber warfare operations with the National Security Agency until 2015.
In interviews with POLITICO, Lee, two other former U.S. government hackers involved in cyber operations against foreign networks, and a former intelligence official who was involved in discussions about such operations, described the complications of wielding Washington’s formidable hacking arsenal.
It’s a conversation that senior U.S. leaders typically don’t like to conduct in public — details about America’s cyber capabilities and calculations about using them have long been closely held secrets. The National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency both have sophisticated hacking divisions with individual teams focused on specific countries or regions to collect intelligence. U.S. Cyber Command, launched in 2010 as part of the Defense Department, hacks networks for offensive operations related to battle, not intelligence collection. It also recently disrupted ransomware groups targeting the U.S.
After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, intelligence agencies diverted resources and personnel to focus on counterterrorism — and later on Iran and China, three of the experts told POLITICO. That remained the case for nearly 15 years. “I wouldn’t say Russia was a backwater, but it certainly wasn’t heavily prioritized,” said the former intelligence official who asked to remain anonymous.
Russian targets were harder to compromise and maintain than systems in many other countries, however.
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