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No, this is a first. It's the first time the US has publicly blamed Russia through official channels, as opposed to leaks to the press. The original alert was published by US-CERT:

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A

and has more interesting technical details.

It's true that both this and previously reports technically involved "anonymous officials in the DHS", in the sense that alert doesn't name any specific officials, but the phrase "anonymous officials" is usually associated with leaks, not official announcements...

Was eye opening to see that gas turbine SCADA system access had been obtained.

I’ve seen unsecured electrical substation and industrial controls, but not actively compromised.

The story I linked to has statements from multiple elected representatives stating point blank that Russia had hacked the electricity grid. Official statements by representatives is the same thing as "The US Says" as far as the world is concerned.

I'd say they're not the same as far as the world is concerned, because the legislative branch is not responsible for diplomacy, and they're also mainly 'downstream' from the agencies actually producing the information.

…I was writing a rather long comment that tried to defend the Post story as, in retrospect, probably true, in light of the current report and other more recent showing a pattern. (In particular, the current report actually shows a VNC connection to some kind of generator system, though presumably not Burlington Electric's.) However, the Post's own followup report [1] suggested that (contrary to the company's original statement) the government had not found any indicators on the Burlington Electric laptop that were uniquely linked to Grizzly Steppe:

    U.S. officials are continuing to investigate the laptop. In the
    course of their investigation, though, they have found on the device
    a package of software tools commonly used by online criminals to
    deliver malware. The package, known as Neutrino, does not appear
    to be connected with Grizzly Steppe, which U.S. officials have
    identified as the Russian hacking operation. The FBI, which declined
    to comment, is continuing to investigate how the malware got onto
    the laptop.
    
    Initially, company officials publicly said they had detected code
    that had been linked by the Department of Homeland Security to
    Grizzly Steppe.

I still don't think this does much of anything to invalidate the current story. It seems like that was mainly a mistake on the company's part, as they incorrectly treated indicators that were non-uniquely linked to a hacking campaign as evidence it was targeted by that campaign. They then reported this to various authorities, and the information apparently found its way via the state police to one of the state's US senators - probably without the details being vetted by anyone with relevant experience. But both the the US-CERT report and the Symantec report provide evidence of an ongoing, targeted campaign against energy facilities (which, for that matter, was active at the time of the Post report). And one would expect that both reports originate from people that do basically know what they're talking about.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russi...

They've been watching this in Ukraine for a few years now. Russia has been using the Ukraine as a cyberwar testing ground attacking utility systems on a seasonal basis.

US utilities and US officials have been in Ukraine for a while working with these utilities on the assumption that what happens in Ukraine will eventually happen on their home turf.

This is actually a thing and it's an important move that officials are calling people out now.

https://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunning-unprecedented-h...

https://www.wired.com/2016/01/everything-we-know-about-ukrai...

> This is not a first. The USA made a nearly identical claim in this retracted story in 2016

Er, no. The story was retracted because what the original version said that authorities claimed was not what authorities actually claimed. It was a journalistic backtrack (WaPo retracted their original reporting), not a government backtrack.

An erroneous media report of the government making an accusation is not an example of the government making the accusation that would, then, invalidate a description of the government later actually making a similar accusation as being unprecedented.

Did you read the story? The claims made to the WaPo were very clear.

Here's an example paragraph:

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said the attack shows how rampant Russian hacking is. “It’s systemic, relentless, predatory,” Welch said . “They will hack everywhere, even Vermont, in pursuit of opportunities to disrupt our country. We must remain vigilant, which is why I support President Obama’s sanctions against Russia and its attacks on our country and what it stands for.”

and another

Officials said that it is unclear when the code entered the Vermont utility’s computer, and that an investigation will attempt to determine the timing and nature of the intrusion.

What US officials are claiming here is very straightforward - the journalists simply quoted them directly in many cases, even the anonymous ones. And the story makes clear this story came from many different sources.

So no, it wasn't a simply journalistic error. The government made precise, clear claims multiple times from multiple officials - and then the story was retracted. But only after many people had seen it.

The story was not retracted, only the characterization, in an earlier version of the story, that the Jack had impacted the electric grid rather than a computer at the utility that was not part of the operation of the grid. This is explicitly stated in the Editor's Note that you quoted.

> So no, it wasn't a simply journalistic error.

Yes, it was.

>>"The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

Not exactly what you said, they hacked a utility computer but not one connected to the grid.

>> story sourced to anonymous officials in the DHS

This is Reuters so odds are that someone @DHS made that claim. Even if Reuters screwed up, DHS would probably call AP and deny the claim.

What should be said is that USA almost certainly does the same, and it makes sense to be able to shut down your adversary once "war" starts.

> There have been far too many false stories about Russian hacking published for them to carry weight.

They never carried weight for me. The "evil Russians" angle has always been about disinforming and misdirecting the public.

but who is doing all this "jumping on a tree's branch" ?? We are worse now than in Cold War times! These unspecified retracted stories' authors are traitors! I won't blame Putin for WW3, I will blame them!