Details about the massive Russian attack on the United States are starting to emerge and it seems devastating to even comprehend. President Trump, who would not even be president were it not for a previous Russian attack on our electoral system and on whose watch this new attack occurred, has of course said nothing.

Thomas Bossert, homeland security adviser to President Trump and deputy homeland security adviser to George W. Bush, penned an op-ed in the Times that includes the kinds of details one would expect from a functioning federal government, as well as a mitigation strategy.

While the Russians did not have the time to gain complete control over every network they hacked, they most certainly did gain it over hundreds of them. It will take years to know for certain which networks the Russians control and which ones they just occupy.

The logical conclusion is that we must act as if the Russian government has control of all the networks it has penetrated. But it is unclear what the Russians intend to do next. The access the Russians now enjoy could be used for far more than simply spying.

It’s staggering and yet completely unsurprising that a president who has openly admired dictators like Putin would allow this kind of military attack on the United States to just happen. It’s not terribly prescient to predict the results of this attack are going to be long reaching and Putin will use whatever material or leverage he has to hamper the Biden administration, which Republicans will gleefully accept. In fact, the Republicans are already failing to respond: in the midst of this unprecedented attack, Trump’s acting defense secretary has halted all transition talks with the incoming Biden administration.

A few more source: Bruce Schneier’s blog is longstanding source of excellent security information, as is Brian Krebs’s. And Marcy Wheeler’s Empty Wheel blog is stellar, plus she’s a fantastic twitter follow to boot.