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Sunday 20 December 2020
Cyber attack from China?
Trump makes the White House need an explanation
Hackers have been infiltrating US government and corporate systems since at least March. There are many indications that the attack was controlled by Moscow. This was communicated by Chancellor Pompeo. But then President Trump stabbed him in the back.
The current president of the United States, Donald Trump, defended Russia in the debate on the massive attack by hackers against American government institutions and openly contradicted his Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo. Pompeo blamed Moscow for the cyber attack. Trump, on the other hand, wrote on Twitter that Russia would always be suspected if something happened. Possibly also China, but this option is not being discussed “primarily for financial reasons.”
Trump downplayed the scope and risk of the hacking attack in his tweet and used the incident to reiterate his unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in the presidential election. Pompeo said in a radio interview on Friday that it can now be said “quite clearly” that the Russians were behind the attack. Russia has rejected any link to the piracy attack.
Several US media, including the Washington Post and CNN, reported on Saturday that a statement had already been prepared at the White House in which Russia should be named as the perpetrator, as in Pompeo’s statement. According to original plans, the statement should have been released on Friday, but was later withheld.
Now the White House needs an explanation of the government’s position on the issue. The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed earlier this week that there had been attacks on various federal agencies. The ministry did not provide details. According to US media reports, the finance and trade departments and other authorities have come under fire. On Friday, the Department of Energy said it was affected. Based on prior knowledge, hackers gained access to the systems of government institutions and companies that use SolarWinds software. US software giant Microsoft announced that 40 of its customers who had used the attacked software were affected.
The Kremlin rejects the accusations
The “Washington Post” and the “New York Times” reported several days ago that the attackers were hackers with connections to the Russian secret service. Moscow rejected that. “We have nothing to do with it,” the Kremlin said. Pompeo now publicly contradicted this and was the first US government representative to publicly accuse Russia of the case. He spoke of “considerable efforts” on the part of the attackers.
Trump initially remained silent on the hackers’ attack for days and did not comment on it publicly. With his tweet, he now defended himself against Russia and suddenly, and without any evidence, he mentioned China as the possible perpetrator of the attack. Trump also claimed that the attack was featured in the “lying media” much more than it actually was. “They have given me complete information and everything is under control,” he wrote.
However, the US Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) had classified the hacker attack as a “serious danger” to the federal government, state and municipal governments, critical infrastructure, and private sector organizations. . Removing the attacker from affected systems is expected to be “very complex.” The cyber attack has been going on since at least March. The perpetrator or perpetrators have demonstrated “patience, operational security and complex dexterity”.
Trump on a hugging course with Russia
Also in the US House of Representatives, which is dominated by Democrats, the chairs of various committees were extremely alarmed. The attack “could have potentially devastating consequences for the national security of the United States,” they warned. The chairman of the House intelligence committee, Democrat Adam Schiff, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that Trump’s statement was “another scandalous betrayal” of US national security. The tweet looks like it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Trump has long been accused of taking a soft course toward Russia. In a meeting with the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, in Finland in 2018, for example, Trump openly questioned the findings of his own secret services, who were convinced that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election campaign. In early November , Trump lost the presidential election to his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. So far, Trump has not admitted his defeat in the election, but claims that he was deprived of victory through massive fraud. It has not provided evidence of this. The courts have thrown out more than 50 lawsuits from the Trump camp. In his tweet about the cyber attack, Trump again made unsubstantiated allegations and wrote that there may have been electronic tampering in the election.
