CIA cyberattacks targeting the Maduro regime didn’t satisfy Trump in his first term. Now the US is flexing its military might

President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro waves following a press conference at Hotel Melia Caracas in Caracas, Venezuela, on September 1, 2025. Jesus Vargas/Getty Images/File

In the final year of President Donald Trump’s first administration, the CIA carried out a clandestine cyberattack against the Venezuelan government, disabling the computer network used by Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s intelligence service.

The attack, described to CNN by four sources familiar with the operation, was perfectly successful.

It was also a throwaway, those sources said — an effort by the CIA to satisfy the president’s ambitions to do something about Venezuela and avoid taking riskier, more direct action against Caracas.

The previously unreported episode was one of a series of moves that national se