The way I like to explain it is that Jan 6 was a Denial of Service attack which would have shut down a critical service COV (Certification_Of_Vote). The COV service was designed to bring a new process online while initiating the shut-down sequence of a lame-duck process. But a rogue script in the lame-duck attempted to shut down the COV service, which would have resulted in a privilege escalation and caused the lame-duck to continue running past its expiration date. Thankfully the DoS attack subsided in time and the COV service resumed its normal operation.