The best defense ...

[Flyslinger2]

... is always a solid offense.  

But should we be "bragging" about being in their knickers?  I get it for surface, water and air supremacy.  If you flash your shiny but nicked sword, you hope that between the size of the sword and the battle scars from previously fought and won battles that mar the blade, they are enough of a deterrent.  

From a security standpoint how many other nation states have we infiltrated and with a flip of a digital switch capable of bringing their infrastructure to a grinding halt?  

[mgorman]

For decades, we have made sure (As did other states) that everyone knew we had enough nuclear weapons to destroy everything.  The principle is known as MAD (never a more apt acronym), Mutually Assured Destruction.  The idea was that everyone knew there was going to be no winner of a nuclear war, so don't start one.  I think cyber is the new battlefield, with the same mantra.  We all know that no matter haw hard we try, there can be holes.  Take that to the extreme of nation state resources, and no one would claim they are fully secured.  So I think the bragging is very deliberate, and just making sure everyone knows that we've got ours, too, so don't start anything.

[vt100]

Not being privy to what's actually going behind the scene, we can only speculate.

With this in mind, what would the NY Times published story help to accomplish?

The only questionable upside is that the population of targeted country will be made aware of our existing capabilities that could negatively affect them.

Would this put any pressure on the Russian government to ease off their interference and offensive campaigns? If the history is an indicator, it would not.

The degree of animosity the average Russian citizen is holding towards US is ridiculous already. US was always used by their propaganda as a scapegoat, whenever internal issues were boiling up.

It'll simply will ratchet up the negative sentiment towards us, as well as support for their present administration.

Which, speaking strictly from assessing their success at the (nefarious) ventures undertaken, seem to be head and shoulders above ours in capabilities and execution.

[AppDefects]

What is interesting about the totality of today's Cyber Cold War is that there is real flaunting of kinetic capability. <blank> help us.