> If the attackers are acting under the protection or tacit approval of a foreign government then you can bet that somewhere, someone is prepping a policy paper

> If the attackers are acting under the protection or tacit approval of a foreign government then you can bet that somewhere, someone is prepping a policy paper for kenetic responses. You could but you probably would lose that bet. This has been done for decades now, especially between friendly countries (see https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-mi6-brexit-spying-surveillance-miche-lbarnier-negotiations-deal-uk-a8494721.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-mi6-brexit...) without any sort of repercussion. Diplomatic posturing aside ("We will treat any intrusion attempt on our networks as an agression"), literally no government actually wants to go to war over a hack. > Given the recent pipeline issue and its national security implications I am not going to be surprised at all if some hackers in Russia end up dead from 'accidents' that are so obviously not accidents that no one is fooled. This is even more nonsensical. Certainly governments would benefit way more from hiring those hackers and/or buying vulns from them than killing them. Especially in less-friendly countries like Russia.