Hacker attacks against senior Russian politicians, as well as misinformation to destabilize the situation in the Russian Federation, is the new strategy that is being prepared in the cyber command of the US Armed Forces. This was reported by informed sources to The Washington Post.
The interlocutor of journalists said that the Pentagon intends to use accusations of Russia of “interference” in the US presidential election to justify the new stage of the information war. Following this, the US military plans to conduct a series of hacker attacks against government officials in the government, intelligence agencies and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the source believes that this stage of the operation will not affect the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, as this step will be “extremely provocative”.
The second stage of the operation is large-scale disinformation. Its goal is to “take advantage of the split within the Russian government and power elites”. The source said that the idea of holding such an information campaign first appeared in 2016 in the National Security Council, but then it did not arouse interest.
It is worth noting that last year the US Congress lifted restrictions on the Pentagon in the matter of conducting cyber operations against strategic opponents of the United States.