Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid
> What’s the problem here? It did not happen.> There was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.” The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all their computers and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid."and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid."So, the first step in penetrating a system was accomplished, getting the code onto a device that could potentially (or so they attacker may have hoped) be connected to the target network.Until I hear that the code was put on the laptop by its owners intentionally and for legitimate reasons, this sounds like an attack. The headlines and responses are arguably alarmist and not fully informed, but it's still an attack. The dismissal of alarmism seems intended to obscure the likelihood that there was, in fact, the start of an attack.If a spear phishing attack fails, was it not still an attack? That it was an attack in the direction of the power grid is, by definition, alarming. [EDIT: The first sentence in this paragraph confuses my point, and can profitably be ignored.]The intercept's article could have been less sensationalist itself, and I wonder what the motivation for the overdramatization of the Post's failure would be. Competition? Schadenfreude? Sensationalist link baiting?Regardless, I had hoped for a more sober and professional style from the intercept from its early days, and I've long ago stopped reading it, modulo the odd HN post.