Russia: Global Interest

Reading about the National Reconnaissance Office is interesting, given that until 1992, the public was not aware of its existence. Even though two decades have passed since it became declassified, I think majority of the public is still unaware of its existence. Due to its secretive nature, people who are aware of its existence do not know much about it or its mission unlike other governmental agencies. Reading this document allows one to know more about the once classified agency and its modern prerogatives. With information technology rapidly changing with the existence of the smartphones, increasingly digitalized technology and access to the internet becoming more abundant, satelittes and digital communication have exponentially transformed since 1992, let alone since the creation of the NRO in the 1960s. As such the NRO has had to continue to transform alongside the growth of the internet to stay up to date with modern information technology.

I have recently become interested in examining the relationship between the US and Russia without the influences of the media. I find it interesting the document concludes there was no direct interference from Russia on the tallying of votes. My understanding after reading this document and having various discussions on the matter is that Russia intended to create unrest among the American people.

A few of the other comments on this document mention the involvement of Russia in other country's elections, which I was unaware of. I find this alarming, it makes me question if there is another goal in mind among the Russian government that will come of the election involvement. If there is another goal that would be achieved by gaining knowledge of election processes of other countries, what could that mean for future elections in the US?

Russia's sustained attempts to interfere with the American political system is a threat to the security of the United States and the democratic ideals that we hold dear. The 2016 election hacking is a very clear case of Russia attempting to destabilize the US and subject their best interests on us. The multiple avenues of attempted meddling shows that they are not only trying to gain control of the leadership, but also the citizens. Hacking the Clinton campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Democratic National Committee created a seemingly inescapable fate. These hacks installed malware on thousands of computers and gave the GRU access to sensitive material about the election and Clinton's past. Spreading propaganda was an interesting mode of dissuading the public that I found very interesting because it used everyday avenues for information gathering like Facebook for malintent. Facebook is taking far more precautions this year to protect its users from interacting with such posts again, but only time will tell if they will be enough to keep Russia at bay. Propaganda this election is surrounding the safety of mail-in voting, which is already a worry for many US citizens, but with more mail-in ballots than ever, there is a significant percentage of votes that will hopefully be able to avoid international involvement until counting.

Today’s reading very interesting. I personally enjoy reading court documents or committee finding reports. The report today expressed some concerns that were addressed in another forum yesterday, CyberSpace. This point is brought up by Dr. Halderman, who expressed that “Our highly computerized election infrastructure is vulnerable to sabotage and even to cyber-attacks that could change votes”, he continued on to say “voting machines are not as distant from the Internet as they may seem”. This is the point that I made yesterday, anything is at the mercy of being hacked or used maliciously it is just the amount of safety that attackers have to supersede before they can cause harm. Simple passwords and lack of safety measures could call results into question, a suggestion could be that more security measures could be used such as retinal or fingerprint codes could be used so a small group of 1-2 people have access to a supervisor mode instead of just by a code. Like @Griffen Ballenger stated, Russia’s interference in the 2016 election may not have manipulated vote tallies, but it gave Russian operators "familiarity with our election systems and voter registration infrastructure— valuable intelligence that it may seek to exploit in the future." This example could of future use be tied to the security of the voting machine section which explains that hackers could use previously documented weaknesses to gain even more access in future machines. I believe that to try and mitigate some problems and weaknesses in the voting machine arena, operating systems should be kept up-to-date, and more security measures should be in place such as the elimination of USB ports on devices or a different code each time someone logs on to vote.

As Americans, we obviously know about Russian infiltration into American politics and our election in 2016. Spies like Maria Butina who infiltrated the NRA in 2016 as well as anonymous Russian bots who spread misinformation on social media site like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, are concerning threats to the security and sovereignty of the United States of America. However, the US is not the only country where Russian influence on elections has been observed. The recent election in Montenegro, which replaced the Pro-NATO, Pro-European coalition with a nationalistic, Pro-Serbian coalition, was largely influenced by Russia, with the Russian Orthodox Church mobilizing to support the Pro-Serbian coalition. Serbia is often alleged to be a Russian satelitte state in the Balkans as it continues to support Russian endevours in the Balkans and follows Russian policy (something to note is that the Serbian Orthodox Church is heavily influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church, which not only has religious influence but also political influence in Eastern Europe). The Belarusian election on August 9, while so far has not shown Russian influence, has been largely supported by the Russian government as a legitimate election, despite strong evidence otherwise. The problem with Russian infiltration and influence is that it does not infiltrate government bodies themselves but infiltrates the minds of the public with Pro-Russian propaganda and misinformation. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram allow misinformation to spread fast. Conspiracy theories are rampant and many "bot" accounts will repost each other making it seem like it is coming from a legitimate source. Many "bot" accounts take on personas and identities that make them appeal to certain audiences and seem more trustworthy. Only recently have social media sites started taking this threat seriously with crackdowns removing hundreds of accounts made to promote misinformation or certain Pro-Russian agendas.

The 2016 election is an interesting case study for cybersecurity. Russia has attempted to interfere with multiple elections through actions in cyberspace. The recent French presidential election comes to mind. Russian intelligence operatives are attributed with spreading disinformation and aggressive cyber actions to influence the elections [1]. The growth of division between US citizens as a goal for the Russian intelligence operatives is interesting to me. Their actions in cyberspace have supported this goal. I remember multiple online profiles that were vocal in support of a specific candidate being geo-located to Russa during the 2016 election. What really interests me is what the US is going to do with this information. The report details critical vulnerabilities in the voting infrastructure. I certainly believe DHS and the NSA will ensure these known vulnerabilities are patched. I however do hope that both organizations are running penetration tests on the voting collection and storage assets to understand and correct potential vulnerabilities. During the 2020 election season, state-sponsored hackers from China have been found targeting the Biden campaign with credential harvesting attacks [2]. Russia and China seem to have similar goals when it comes to the US election this year. Foreign interference in US democracy poses a major issue to the US political system. The last section interests me as it addresses the threat environment with a call to action. “Our adversaries will persist in their efforts to undermine our shared democratic values. In order to ensure that our democracy endures, it is imperative that we recognize the threat and make the investments necessary to withstand the next attack.”

Russia and the French Election

www.politico.eu

France built resistance to fake news and cyberattacks but three out of four candidates have pro-Kremlin views.

Chinese Hackers Target Biden Campaign

blog.google

An update on how threat actors are changing their tactics, and how Google’s Threat Analysis Group works to protect our products and the people using them.

Russia is undoubtedly trying to tamper with American elections. Russian interference in social media has divided Americans and led to the proliferation of disinformation. And as the document points out, while there was no tampering of votes in 2016, the interference revealed the potential for disaster in 2020.

I find this to be most worrying at the state level, where security may be very weak. Many state voting infrastructures are very out of date. Some still use Windows 7, which is no longer supported by Microsoft. And many election jurisdictions still do not keep paper records, which makes elections even more vulnerable to hacking. Since the constitution devolves the power of holding elections to the states, much of these security efforts will have to go through state governments. This is why it is good to see states taking the initiative to promote election security through programs such as when representatives from five western states met at an "Elections Security: States Teaming Up" meeting hosted by the National Conference of State Legislators. As with many things, cooperation between states and agencies will be essential to assure that there can be security in all aspects of the election.

Today's reading expressed the view that while Russia's interference in the 2016 election may not have manipulated vote tallies, it gave Russian operators "familiarity with our election systems and voter registration infrastructure— valuable intelligence that it may seek to exploit in the future."

Sometimes it feels like the significance of this attack is overshadowed by the finding that it did not affect the vote tally. The fact that the Russians are conducting the exact same kind of operations in other countries as well as this US election cycle proves that 2016 was not circumstantial - we have entered a new and unprecedented phase of warfare. The statement above talks about Russia exploiting its new knowledge in the future. The "future" in this document is now. As the reading declares, our democracy risks continued erosion if its legitimacy is repeatedly called into question by these kinds of nefarious acts.

This report focuses specifically on Russian interference through cyber attacks. However, Russia has also used a kind of financial warfare to assault democratic processes here in the US and in Europe. Details of these efforts were documented in a report by researchers at the German Marshall Fund in the United States:

https://www.gmfus.org/publications/covert-foreign-money-financial-loopholes-exploited-authoritarians-fund-political

For @Madeline Smith and others interested in China affairs, this report documents similar Chinese efforts against Australia and New Zealand.