Direct response is part of a new effort to be more transparent about threats | Photo: Shutterstock
The 2016 presidential campaign was entering its final months and seemingly all of Washington was abuzz with rumors about how Russian hackers had penetrated Democrats’ email accounts, triggering the release of internal communications that appeared designed to boost Donald Trump’s campaign and hurt Hillary Clinton’s.
There was one notable exception, however: Officials investigating the attacks remained silent.
When they finally issued a statement, a month before the election, it contained only three paragraphs and did little more than confirm what had been publicly suspected: that there had been a blatant Russian attempt to interfere in the vote.
This year, there was another foreign cyberattack, but the response was decidedly different. U.S. security officials moved more quickly to identify the culprit, detailing their findings and blaming a foreign adversary, Iran, this time just over a week after the Trump campaign disclosed the attack.
Iranian hackers have been accused of targeting the presidential campaigns of both major parties as part of a broader attempt to sow discord in the American political process.
The direct response is part of a new effort to be more transparent about threats. It was a task made easier because the circumstances were not as politically volatile as in 2016, when a Democratic administration was investigating Russia’s efforts to help the Republican nominee.
But it likely also reflects lessons learned from years past, when officials charged with protecting elections from foreign adversaries were criticized by some for withholding sensitive information and lambasted by others for meddling in politics.
The Aug. 19 statement by security officials followed an announcement by the Trump campaign that it had been breached, reports from cybersecurity firms linking the intrusion to Iran and news articles revealing that media organizations had been contacted with apparently hacked materials.
But officials suggested their response was independent of those developments.
The FBI said in a statement to The Associated Press that transparency is one of the most powerful tools we have to counter malign foreign influence operations aimed at undermining our elections and democratic institutions.
He said the administration had refined its policies to ensure information was shared as it became available, “so the American people can better understand this threat, recognize the tactics and protect their vote.”
An ODNI spokesperson also told AP that the government’s assessment emerged from a process to notify the public about election threats that brings together representatives from several intelligence and national security agencies.
The framework sets out a process for investigating and responding to cyber threats against campaigns, election offices or the public. When a threat is deemed sufficiently serious, it proposes that additional steps be taken, such as a private warning to the target of the attack or a public announcement.
The intelligence community has been focused on collecting and analyzing information about foreign malign influence activities, including from Iran, targeting U.S. elections, the agency said. For this notification, the IC had relevant information that prompted a nomination.
In 2016, we were completely caught off guard, said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. There were some hints, but no one really understood the magnitude.
That summer, U.S. officials watched with alarm as Democratic emails stolen by Russian military hackers trickled out on WikiLeaks. By late July, the FBI had opened an investigation into whether the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to tip the election. The investigation ended without any conclusion that the two sides had criminally colluded.
Then-FBI Director James Comey wrote in his book A Higher Loyalty that he at one point proposed writing an op-ed for a newspaper documenting Russia’s activities. He described the Obama administration’s deliberations as “extensive, thoughtful and very slow,” culminating in the pre-election statement followed by a more extensive intelligence community assessment in January 2017.
In 2018, Congress created CISA, the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Security, to defend against digital attacks. Four years later, the Center on Foreign and Malignant Influence was created within the ODNI to track efforts by foreign governments to influence Americans, including before the election.
Still, there have been obstacles and controversies. Shortly after Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Trump fired CISA director Christopher Krebs for refuting his baseless claim of voter fraud.
Also during the 2020 election, The New York Post reported that it had obtained a hard drive from a laptop that Hunter Biden had left at a Delaware computer repair shop. This sparked public confusion, as did claims from former intelligence officials that the laptop’s appearance bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. Trump’s director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, soon afterward refuted that claim with a statement saying there was no sign of Russian involvement.
In 2022, the work of a new office called the Disinformation Governance Board was quickly suspended after Republicans raised questions about its relationship with social media companies and concerns that it could be used to monitor or censor Americans’ online speech.
Legal challenges over government restrictions on free speech have also complicated the government’s ability to share information with social media companies, though Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a recent speech that the government has resumed sharing details with the private sector.
Earlier this year, Warner said he was concerned that the U.S. was more vulnerable than it was in 2020, in part because of less communication between the government and tech companies. He said he was pleased with the government’s recent work, citing an increased number of reports and public warnings, but he was concerned that the biggest test was likely yet to come.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: August 28, 2024 | 7:48 a.m. IS
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