Article snippet: published a report about the United States's efforts to penetrate Russia's power grid. The Times, citing current and former government officials, noted that the actions are a warning to Moscow on how the Trump administration is using new authorities to unleash cyber tools in an aggressive manner. The officials said that the U.S. was deploying computer code within Russia's grid and other targets. The moves are reportedly part of a broader initiative "directed at Moscow’s disinformation and hacking units around the 2018 midterm elections," according to the Times. “It has gotten far, far more aggressive over the past year,” one senior intelligence official told the Times. “We are doing things at a scale that we never contemplated a few years ago.” Advocates of the strategy have reportedly argued that the U.S.'s campaign is warranted, given the warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI that Russia has inserted malware that could damage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, and water supplies. The new cyber authorities were granted to the U.S. Cyber Command by the White House and Congress last year, according to the Times. The administration declined to comment to the Times on the specific actions it was undertaking. Multiple administration officials also told the newspaper that they do not believe Trump was briefed about the plans to deploy computer code into Russia's grid. Some officials within the Pentagon and intelligence community told... Link to the full article to read more