In total, the result was more than $10 billion in damages, according to a White House assessment confirmed to me by the former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, who at the time of the attack was President Trump’s most senior cybersecurity-focused official. Bossert emphasized, in fact, that this eleven-figure number represents a floor for their estimate, not a ceiling; it might well have been much higher. “While there was no loss of life, it was the equivalent of using a nuclear bomb to achieve a small tactical victory,” Bossert said. “That’s a degree of recklessness we can’t tolerate on
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