Shouldn't the NSA document be a huge banner headline everywhere?

[thesquanderer]

37. No, I'd say it's not as big as you think it is.

As far as I can see, it's just evidence of an email/malware/phishing attack, which while not trivial, is not earth shattering either (less significant than hacks of the DNC server, etc.). There is *speculation* that they may have been attempting to use this hack to make it harder for people to vote, but I've only seen that as third party speculation, there's nothing that goes that far in the NSA docs (as far as I saw)... no proof that they actually were using it for this, much less any evidence that they actually succeeded. (Besides, when it comes to trying to make it harder for people to vote, the Republicans have already been doing this for years. )

Here's the headline/summary of the report:

"RussiaICybersecurity: Main Intelligence Directorate Cyber Actors,Target U.S. Companies and Local U.S. Government Officials Using Voter Registration-Themed Emails, Spoof Election-Related Products and Services, Research Absentee Ballot Email Addresses"

Short version, this is what I think it means: The perpetrators hacked an election software/hardware company to send emails to election officials, with subject lines and content designed to make the recipients think they were getting legitimate emails about voter registration, and the emails contained spoofed malware links, with the goal of possibly setting these officials up to use phony election related services.

Bad? Yes. Huge banner headline? Compared to most of what's been going on, probably not. (Especially since I don't think there's even any evidence of their having succeeded in getting people to use any such phony services.)