So this seems to be the "Dr Strangelove" scenario playing out, but with (fortunately) exploits rather than nuclear weapons. It sounds like many countries have other significant exploits into other countries, but this isn't "admitted"; it's not an unignorable public fact (+). The Russian destabilisation plan is to get Western countries to see NSA attacks on them and lose trust in the US - plus an attack on the concept of democracy by getting enough people to lose faith in the US election.
(+) "unignorable public fact" is a clunky way of expressing it, but I mean something that you can bring up in a news report and politicians discuss what the appropriate reaction is, rather than challenging the fact itself. This is getting increasingly rare.
(+) "unignorable public fact" is a clunky way of expressing it, but I mean something that you can bring up in a news report and politicians discuss what the appropriate reaction is, rather than challenging the fact itself. This is getting increasingly rare.