[h=1]Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security[/h]
Release Date:
October 7, 2016
For Immediate Release
DHS Press Office
Contact: 202-282-8010
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government. The USIC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assess that it would be extremely difficult for someone, including a nation-state actor, to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion. This assessment is based on the decentralized nature of our election system in this country and the number of protections state and local election officials have in place. States ensure that voting machines are not connected to the Internet, and there are numerous checks and balances as well as extensive oversight at multiple levels built into our election process.
Nevertheless, DHS continues to urge state and local election officials to be vigilant and seek cybersecurity assistance from DHS. A number of states have already done so. DHS is providing several services to state and local election officials to assist in their cybersecurity. These services include cyber “hygiene” scans of Internet-facing systems, risk and vulnerability assessments, information sharing about cyber incidents, and best practices for securing voter registration databases and addressing potential cyber threats. DHS has convened an Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group with experts across all levels of government to raise awareness of cybersecurity risks potentially affecting election infrastructure and the elections process. Secretary Johnson and DHS officials are working directly with the National Association of Secretaries of State to offer assistance, share information, and provide additional resources to state and local officials.
Release Date:
October 7, 2016
For Immediate Release
DHS Press Office
Contact: 202-282-8010
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government. The USIC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assess that it would be extremely difficult for someone, including a nation-state actor, to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion. This assessment is based on the decentralized nature of our election system in this country and the number of protections state and local election officials have in place. States ensure that voting machines are not connected to the Internet, and there are numerous checks and balances as well as extensive oversight at multiple levels built into our election process.
Nevertheless, DHS continues to urge state and local election officials to be vigilant and seek cybersecurity assistance from DHS. A number of states have already done so. DHS is providing several services to state and local election officials to assist in their cybersecurity. These services include cyber “hygiene” scans of Internet-facing systems, risk and vulnerability assessments, information sharing about cyber incidents, and best practices for securing voter registration databases and addressing potential cyber threats. DHS has convened an Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group with experts across all levels of government to raise awareness of cybersecurity risks potentially affecting election infrastructure and the elections process. Secretary Johnson and DHS officials are working directly with the National Association of Secretaries of State to offer assistance, share information, and provide additional resources to state and local officials.
Lisa Monaco: Transcript
Monaco: So, to your first question, I think that for some years now, the intelligence community has identified Russia as an increasingly aggressive actor, particularly in cyberspace, and we’ve seen, whether it’s in Ukraine, whether it’s in their intervention in Syria, on a host of levels, what they’ve been doing elsewhere in Europe, their aggression and frankly, tactic of flouting international norms. So, I don’t think that we were late to the game on that.
As to the particular investigation of the hacking, that is something that, you know, we treated very much in the way that we have done other malicious activity by cyber actors. In other words, we applied the same framework that we have in other contexts, whether it was China stealing intellectual property, whether it’s Iran committing denial of service attacks on our financial institutions, whether it’s North Korea in the Sony attack, and we said, “FBI and intelligence community, you need to get to the bottom of this, employ all the tools of intelligence, law enforcement to understand what do we know has happened.
How can we attribute who the actor was? And then can we say it publicly in a way that will give our—the public and our adversaries confidence that we, in fact, know what we’re talking about without violating or exposing sources and methods that won’t allow us in the future to make that same attribution?” So, we applied a framework and a playbook that we have done many times. Now, there has been this theory that we didn’t do anything, which I take issue with.
So, there was considerable work done all throughout the summer, both private messaging at the highest levels, as the president and others have talked about, and substantial engagement with the Congress, and substantial engagement with state and local officers, and governments, and those who, frankly, manage, hold, own, and operate the electoral system, and the election process, because our first goal was to make sure that the integrity of the election was not undermined. B.
April 03, 2017
April 03, 2017
By SUSANGlasser: Right. And so, OK, let’s talk about Russia, though. So, first of all, a lot of people have wondered—Democrats and Republicans—why did it take so long for us to seem to understand the nature of this Russian penetration of our democratic institutions, and specifically, the Democratic Party? Was that a failure of our system? Or a failure of a sort of category understanding, right? Like, did we—clearly it took a long time for the FBI to get to the right people at the DNC, in the narrow example.What do you think about that, to start? And then I do want to ask about the policy debate, not the substantive discussion of these still-classified—understandably—matters, but the policy debate about going public, and what your particular position was. We know there were lots of different points of view being expressed about whether the president should speak more forcefully before the election.April 03, 2017
Monaco: So, to your first question, I think that for some years now, the intelligence community has identified Russia as an increasingly aggressive actor, particularly in cyberspace, and we’ve seen, whether it’s in Ukraine, whether it’s in their intervention in Syria, on a host of levels, what they’ve been doing elsewhere in Europe, their aggression and frankly, tactic of flouting international norms. So, I don’t think that we were late to the game on that.
As to the particular investigation of the hacking, that is something that, you know, we treated very much in the way that we have done other malicious activity by cyber actors. In other words, we applied the same framework that we have in other contexts, whether it was China stealing intellectual property, whether it’s Iran committing denial of service attacks on our financial institutions, whether it’s North Korea in the Sony attack, and we said, “FBI and intelligence community, you need to get to the bottom of this, employ all the tools of intelligence, law enforcement to understand what do we know has happened.
How can we attribute who the actor was? And then can we say it publicly in a way that will give our—the public and our adversaries confidence that we, in fact, know what we’re talking about without violating or exposing sources and methods that won’t allow us in the future to make that same attribution?” So, we applied a framework and a playbook that we have done many times. Now, there has been this theory that we didn’t do anything, which I take issue with.
So, there was considerable work done all throughout the summer, both private messaging at the highest levels, as the president and others have talked about, and substantial engagement with the Congress, and substantial engagement with state and local officers, and governments, and those who, frankly, manage, hold, own, and operate the electoral system, and the election process, because our first goal was to make sure that the integrity of the election was not undermined. B.
Glasser: Well, it’s interesting because if you talk to, as I did recently for this podcast, to Congressman Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, he and Dianne Feinstein actually put out a statement in September, and what they say, and what he told me in this interview, was they wouldn’t have done that had they successfully gotten the White House to do that instead.
And so there was already a robust behind-the-scenes debate about going public, not with getting ahead of your skis in terms of what the information was, but going public with what you were already privately working on. And you know, he said very clearly the National Security Council stopped me from being able to pursue that. Said ‘no.” Absolutely shut that down. President Obama wasn’t going to do anything more. That’s why they released their statement.
Then, of course, a few weeks later, President Obama did come in. You must have participated in meetings where this was discussed. Does that look like a mistake in hindsight? Did you—and also, did you have a personal point of view that you expressed?
Monaco: So, I think people forget somewhat amazingly that on October 7, the director of national intelligence, the secretary of homeland security, backed up by the full intelligence community, issued an unprecedented statement in declaring, quite clearly, that Russia, including at the highest levels, was engaged in a campaign to try and influence our election.
And what we were very focused on in doing that—and that was a very purposeful approach, and we relied on the intelligence community and law enforcement to say, what are you comfortable saying based on your investigation? And what can be said that will not hinder our national security going forward, right?
So, that was an unprecedented statement. I think it got lost a little bit—on the same day, the Billy Bush tape came out, so that is, I think, a fact that sometimes gets lost in this discussion. So, there was an unprecedented statement, and repeated and regular briefings of Congress all the way along, at the classified level about what was going on.
But our focus, as I said, was really to make sure that the election process was not undermined, because here’s the thing: Whatever else was a subject of debate about motive, we knew, and everyone agreed, that one of the goals that Russia had in all of this was to undermine confidence in our democratic process, to sow discord, to sow confusion. And so, we were very conscious that we not do their work for them by creating a partisan discussion about this. So, the Schiff and Feinstein statement, I think, one of the concerns was that it was not bipartisan.
And so there was already a robust behind-the-scenes debate about going public, not with getting ahead of your skis in terms of what the information was, but going public with what you were already privately working on. And you know, he said very clearly the National Security Council stopped me from being able to pursue that. Said ‘no.” Absolutely shut that down. President Obama wasn’t going to do anything more. That’s why they released their statement.
Then, of course, a few weeks later, President Obama did come in. You must have participated in meetings where this was discussed. Does that look like a mistake in hindsight? Did you—and also, did you have a personal point of view that you expressed?
Monaco: So, I think people forget somewhat amazingly that on October 7, the director of national intelligence, the secretary of homeland security, backed up by the full intelligence community, issued an unprecedented statement in declaring, quite clearly, that Russia, including at the highest levels, was engaged in a campaign to try and influence our election.
And what we were very focused on in doing that—and that was a very purposeful approach, and we relied on the intelligence community and law enforcement to say, what are you comfortable saying based on your investigation? And what can be said that will not hinder our national security going forward, right?
So, that was an unprecedented statement. I think it got lost a little bit—on the same day, the Billy Bush tape came out, so that is, I think, a fact that sometimes gets lost in this discussion. So, there was an unprecedented statement, and repeated and regular briefings of Congress all the way along, at the classified level about what was going on.
But our focus, as I said, was really to make sure that the election process was not undermined, because here’s the thing: Whatever else was a subject of debate about motive, we knew, and everyone agreed, that one of the goals that Russia had in all of this was to undermine confidence in our democratic process, to sow discord, to sow confusion. And so, we were very conscious that we not do their work for them by creating a partisan discussion about this. So, the Schiff and Feinstein statement, I think, one of the concerns was that it was not bipartisan.
Glasser: Right.
Monaco: And my own view on that is we did not want to do anything to do the Russians’ work for them by engaging in partisan discussion about this, which is why we were so intent upon getting bipartisan support, and ultimately, we did so from the House and Senate leadership, in trying to get the state and local governments to work with us to shore up their cybersecurity.
We made a specific effort to go to Congress, to say we want bipartisan support for state governments to take us up on our offer to shore up their cybersecurity in their election systems, because there was a tremendous amount of resistance. This is an election year, I think there was a view that we—if we came to state and municipal governments and said, “We want to help you shore up your cybersecurity for your election system,” they viewed it as a big federal takeover.
We really needed bipartisan support for the efforts we were making, largely out of the Department of Homeland Security. Ultimately, that turned out to be a smart way of doing business, and we ended up having 48 of 50 states take us up on our offer, but we needed bipartisan support to do it.
Monaco: And my own view on that is we did not want to do anything to do the Russians’ work for them by engaging in partisan discussion about this, which is why we were so intent upon getting bipartisan support, and ultimately, we did so from the House and Senate leadership, in trying to get the state and local governments to work with us to shore up their cybersecurity.
We made a specific effort to go to Congress, to say we want bipartisan support for state governments to take us up on our offer to shore up their cybersecurity in their election systems, because there was a tremendous amount of resistance. This is an election year, I think there was a view that we—if we came to state and municipal governments and said, “We want to help you shore up your cybersecurity for your election system,” they viewed it as a big federal takeover.
We really needed bipartisan support for the efforts we were making, largely out of the Department of Homeland Security. Ultimately, that turned out to be a smart way of doing business, and we ended up having 48 of 50 states take us up on our offer, but we needed bipartisan support to do it.
