The article is a bit too long to accurately summarise, but essentially WaPo published a story under the following headline: “Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont, U.S. officials say.”
>The lead sentence offered “A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials” and continued “While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations of the utility, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a security matter, the penetration of the nation’s electrical grid is significant because it represents a potentially serious vulnerability.”
This is at best a deeply misleading intro. The malware was found on a laptop not connected to the grid. The allegation that "Russian hackers penetrated the electrical grid" because they found tools which once may have been developed by Russians is about as accurate as me concluding that a hypothetical murderer was American because the murder weapon was an American-made AR-15.
There are several more concerning parts to the story but alas, I'm on mobile and have slacked off long enough.
I don't buy into the "MSM are knowing purveyors of fake news because profit!" but humans make mistakes and the desire of mainstream newspapers to beat bloggers in timeliness and pageviews can ultimately lead to standards slipping even among writers who would never knowingly publish a false story.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/01/01/fake-ne...