Segueing into a report from the Wall Street Journal on the vulnerabilities of U.S. infrastructures, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow used the current polar vortex to hypothesize a Russian attack on the power grid.

“And it is like negative 50 degrees in the Dakotas right now. What would happen if Russia killed the power in Fargo today? What would happen if all the natural gas lines that service Sioux Falls just poofed on the coldest day in recent memories, and it wasn’t in our power whether or not to turn them back on,” Maddow said.

“What would you do if you lost heat indefinitely as the act of a foreign power on the same day the temperature in your front yard matched the temperature in Antarctica? I mean, what would you and your family do,” she asked.

Later on in the segment WSJ’s Rebecca Smith said this year’s threat assessment noted the attacks on the infrastructures are no longer hypotheticals, but now foreign agents are able to infiltrate systems.

The New York Times reported in 2018 how Russian hackers are starting to target America’s electric grid instead of going after campaigns:

Despite attempts to infiltrate the online accounts of two Senate Democrats up for re-election, intelligence officials said they have seen little activity by Russian military hackers aimed at either major American political figures or state voter registration systems. By comparison, according to intelligence officials and executives of the companies that oversee the world’s computer networks, there is surprisingly far more effort directed at implanting malware in the electrical grid.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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