President Obama has taken a first step in countering the actions of Russian entities that are responsible for interfering with the 2016 Presidential elections.

Those first steps include declaring 35 embassy officials “persona non grata” and forcing them to leave the U.S. within 72 hours. He has also named several GRU officials as being involved in the hacking as well as two Russian citizens. Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev and Aleksey Alekseyevich Belan are charged with misappropriation of funds and digging up personally identifiable information (PII).

“Over the past two years, harassment of our diplomatic personnel in Russia by security personnel and police has increased significantly and gone far beyond international diplomatic norms of behavior,” the White House release said. "Other Western Embassies have reported similar concerns."

Steve Grobman, Intel Security's CTO, warned: “While offensive cyber operations can be highly precise munitions in that they can be directed to only impact specific targets, the global and interconnected nature of computing systems can lead to unintended consequences," Grobman said. "Impacting digital infrastructure beyond the intended target opens the door to draw additional nation-states into a conflict. This increases risk to civilian populations as countries see the need to retaliate or escalate."

Source: SCMagazine