A Cyber-attack that hit us with the Rope-A-Dope!

As many of us know; the United States has been under cyber-attack from Russia for the past 6 years. We’re not the only victims; Russia has been pulling off 20 years of Large-scale attacks against the US and other countries (The Ukraine, Lithuania, Germany and Georgia to name a few). Many of us are unaware because we’ve let our political beliefs blind us; but many of us are also unaware because we live busy lives. We are human. 

When I said earlier that many of us let our political beliefs blind us; that may have been the underlying goal of the attackers. In 2015, the Russians attacked at least 3 Eastern European countries including Germany and the United States in hopes of influencing the local elections. This according to major news outlets such as NBC and BBC along with various FBI and CIA reports. The highly-skilled Russian forces has staged a plethora of different attacks across the board; such as the DDOS attack against Ukraine in 2009 that disrupted 2 of the country's 4 ISPs. Or the smear campaign of Hilary Clinton. As in 2015 Russia attacked her private email server; and in 2016, They attacked her on Social Media. Various investigations (including but not limited to The Mueller Report) of various social media platforms concluded with the observation that Russian intelligence agencies created fake social media accounts and bought ads on multiple social media sites in order to influence the election with ads and memes aimed to hurt Hillary Clinton and to favor the eventual winner, Donald Trump.

But let’s go back a bit first: on Halloween eve. October 30, 1974, Muhammed Ali and George Forman had a boxing match that was dubbed “The Rumble in the Jungle'' in Kinshasa, Zaire. On a humid night in round 8; many thought the bigger and stronger George Forman had the older Ali beat. Ali appeared to “run out of gas” as he leaned against the ropes with 47 seconds to go in the round. While Foreman laid punch after punch on a seemingly tired Ali; it looked like it was all over. However, it slowly became clear that Ali was allowing Foreman to tire himself out. Ali lured him into a false sense of security, as if Foreman had the fight won. Ali then reversed positions and knocked Forman down with a precise 5-punch combination.

Fast-forward to the 2020 US election. Many were still contesting that Russia’s persistent attacks would persist. 

On Election Day, General Paul M. Nakasone, the nation's top cyberwarrior, reported that the battle against Russian interference in the presidential campaign had posted major successes and exposed the other side’s online weapons, tools and tradecraft. 

“We’ve broadened our operations and feel very good where we’re at right now,” he told journalists.

But much like George Forman on that humid evening in Zaire, we were unprepared for what was coming and was lured into a false sense of security. As Russia didn't aim for the elections this time; they hacked over 250 Federal agencies and businesses.

Because of political ideologies and affiliations; many still deny that there was Russian interference in our elections. Many call these findings a hoax. Hopefully we can drop the denial before we get Denial of Service.