Report: Punishment coming for Russia over U.S. election interference

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (UPI) — President Barack Obama‘s administration is planning to punish Moscow for meddling in last month’s election, unnamed federal officials told The Washington Post.

Administration officials said sanctions are coming soon for the Russians’ purported interference in the election — an effort confirmed by the Central Intelligence Agency and seconded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The punishment will include economic and diplomatic censure — as well as secret cyber operations, the Post reported. A public announcement of the measures, which are still being finalized, may come this week.

George Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, told CNBC the United States should impose economic sanctions on Russia, not just “naming and shaming.”

“When you think about the overall environment, it’s just too easy to create malware that’s not detected by the current generation of anti-virus products,” he said. “That’s the reason that we’re seeing a lot of these attacks … . It’s so easy to do, it’s very little cost and very little opportunity to actually get caught.

“It just highlights, when we look at the broad global economic environment, just how intertwined cyber is with our political — and our industrial — base.”

CrowdStrike was the first cybersecurity firm to release some evidence of Russia’s involvement in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee prior to the election of Donald Trump.

That evidence was backed up last month when the CIA said an inquiry found that the Russian government made efforts to sway the election in Trump’s favor. FBI Director James Comey supported the CIA’s conclusion, and Obama has indicated that Russia would be punished.

The sources cited in the Post report were not identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the coming sanctions.

Obama issued an executive order last year intended to fight cyberattacks but the order cannot be applied to electoral interference, experts said. Since the purported Russian involvement was discovered, White House officials have been trying to determine how to revise the order.

But Obama’s administration is running out of time. Trump, a prominent businessman with some ties to Russia and at least a semi-friendly relationship with President Vladimir Putin, will take office on Jan. 20.

New sanctions mean that Moscow, which is already being punished economically for its military actions in Ukraine, will experience even more isolation from the international community. Putin, who is also a supporter of Syrian leader and U.S. foe Bashar al-Assad, had repeatedly expressed a desire to see Trump elected over Hillary Clinton — a view also shared by most Russian citizens.

The Russian government has denied involvement in the presidential election, as well as various U.S. political hacks.

“As much as I am concerned about what happened to us in the election, I am also concerned about what will happen to us in the future,” another U.S. official said. “I am firmly convinced that the Russians and others will say, ‘That worked pretty well in 2016, so let’s keep going.’ We have elections every two years in this country.”