On December 23, 2015, just ahead of Christmas Eve, Russia crossed a digital Rubicon. The very same Russian hackers that had been laying trapdoors and virtual explosives in Ukrainian media outlets and government agencies for months had also silently embedded themselves in the nation’s power stations. That December they made their way into the computers that controlled Ukraine’s power grid, meticulously shutting off one circuit breaker after another until hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were without power. For good measure, they shut down emergency phone lines. And for added pain, they shut
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