Russia Hacked Vermont’s Power Grid . . . Or Not . . .

Russia Hacked Vermont’s Power Grid . . . Or Not . . .

For crying out loud. More fake news by the media. First outlets claim that Russia hacked the election and now they say that Russian hackers penetrated a Vermont power grid.

Look at this Washington Post headline:

Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say.

NO. That is NOT what happened. The fact that the Post did not even bother contacting Burlington Electric makes this even worse.

From The Burlington Free Press (emphasis mine):

Malware was found at the utility in a computer that was not connected to the operation of the grid, Vermont Public Service Commissioner Christopher Recchia said.

The utility found the cyber attack Friday on a laptop after the Obama administration released code associated with the group, dubbed Grizzly Steppe, on Thursday.

The aim of the release was to allow utilities, companies and organizations to search their computers for the digital signatures of the attack code, to see if they had been targeted.

Based on his knowledge, Recchia said Friday night he did not believe the electrical power grid was at risk from the incident. “The grid is not in danger,” Recchia said. “The utility flagged it, saw it, notified appropriate parties and isolated that one laptop with that malware on it.”

—

Mike Kanarick, spokesman for Burlington Electric Department, said in a statement: “We acted quickly to scan all computers in our system for the malware signature. We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to our organization’s grid systems. We took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal officials of this finding.”

It is unclear if the penetration was an attempt to disrupt the utility or simply a test.

Pretty amazing how badly the Post appears to have mangled this one. You didn't call the Vermont utility regulator before publishing?

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) December 31, 2016

Compare the initial and current versions of the headline. pic.twitter.com/ejbE3A7eZ7

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) December 31, 2016

Anyone can purchase this malware found on the laptop. It does not mean Russians implemented the malware just because Russians developed the malware.

Look, should we be concerned about Russia? Yes. But this goes in line with the media jumping on everything President-elect Donald Trump says and does. The media continues to cry wolf.

More importantly, the media has started on a path similar to Russian media, which constantly stirs the fear of Russians against the United States. When something goes wrong, they blame America.

I remember having anger and frustration towards the Russian media during the Ukraine crisis. The way they spun information to poison the minds of Russians against the West disgusted me. In fact, many reporters resigned from outlets because they witnessed the Kremlin pressuring their workplaces to report incidents a certain way.

No, I’m not accusing our government of instructing media outlets on how to report incidents. Now when something happens in America, our media, and our government, blames the Russians. We have slowly become no better than the Russians.

So when Russia really does something, it will be hard to believe the media because they keep crying wolf.

Journalists need to educate themselves on Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is the world’s biggest troll. He lives off this fear and wild accusations. He loves it. Stop giving him ammunition because he will just troll us harder.

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