And while the Vermont hack was a scare, swathes of Ukraine were really plunged into darkness by Russian hackers in December 2015 and December 2016. Predictably, and despite the fact that U.S. officials are aware of cyberattacks emanating from Russia since at least 2009, Trump has consistently questioned intelligence regarding such Russian attacks when not heaping lavish praise upon Russia's president Vladimir Putin. The second example involves critical flaws in the woefully outdated system used by financial institutions the world over to transfer trillions of dollars each day. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system is a messaging system that most of the world's banks use to communicate payment orders. In June a group of hackers (possibly Russian) stole $10 million from a Ukrainian bank via the SWIFT system.

Source: Huffington Post January 19, 2017 16:57 UTC