For years, the US government has been promising—or threatening—a more autonomous and aggressive Cyber Command, the sibling of the National Security Agency whose hackers are authorized to wage cyberwar and disrupt America’s adversaries with direct acts of digital sabotage. During last November’s congressional election, it seems, the newly empowered agency quietly flexed its muscles in an operation that took out internet access for Russia’s Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked hub of social media disinformation.
But while that takedown created an immediate, albeit temporary, impediment for the IRA’s trolls at a key moment, much of the security and intelligence community argues that the message the operation sent—its power as a “signal” to US adversaries online—will resonate further and longer. But the question remains: What does that message actually say?
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Source: US Hackers’ Strike on Russian Trolls Sends a Message—but What Kind? | WIRED