U.S. security and intelligence officials announced a partial victory in a nationwide election on Tuesday (November 4). They said they have strongly stopped attacks on voting infrastructure in the face of a disinformation campaign from foreign adversaries.
Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, said the election hacking hit hard before it could cause lasting damage.
Nakasone, who is also director of the U.S. National Security Agency, said in a statement Tuesday night: “I am confident that the actions we have taken over the past weeks and months have ensured that our adversaries did not interfere with our election.”
He said future attacks on the U.S. democratic process would be met with similarly strong pushback.
He said, “Our work does not end on November 3. We will take action against any country or actor that tries to interfere.”
Election security officials from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency expressed similar confidence in a series of media briefings Tuesday. They told reporters that years of preparation, coupled with an investment in paper backup ballots, had paid off.
A senior official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of foreign adversaries, “We’re not an easy target. You’ll have to be better prepared next time.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s election day, U.S. intelligence officials confirmed two attempts to interfere in the election, one by Iran and the other by Russia.
In both cases, hackers gained access to information related to voter registration data, intelligence officials said. Iran tried to hack into a state’s database and used that data to spread disinformation.
After the polls closed Tuesday, security officials said they began responding to more disinformation campaigns from Iran as well as from Russia, China and other adversaries.
They said that disinformation campaigns take advantage of the uncertainty in states where the vote is tied up because of mail-in ballots and where the final outcome may be uncertain for days in an attempt to undermine Americans’ confidence in the democratic process.
The unnamed senior official at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned, “In the coming days and weeks, the attack surface is shifting from the actual voting process itself to the tallying, ranking, auditing, and authentication of the ballots.”
He warned, “You may see websites being hacked and vote counts being manipulated on certain websites or even in the media. You may also see denial of service attacks and see disinformation operations that amplify or promote false election results.”
Security officials and experts say they have seen some evidence of disinformation campaigns, particularly from Russian media outlets such as Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, as polling stations began to close Tuesday.
Bret Schafer, a researcher who studies digital disinformation at the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, told VOA in an email, “We’re seeing Russia amplifying some of the allegations of election fraud/intimidation. Especially in Pennsylvania.”
He said, “but it still pales in comparison to domestic disinformation.” He warned that foreign disinformation operations are likely to become increasingly active in the coming days as things take shape and the narrative takes hold.
Other experts also warned that U.S. adversaries are likely biding their time, looking to exploit the existing disinformation ecosystem in the United States.
Nina Jankowicz, a researcher at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., who studies disinformation, said, “Foreign actors only need to amplify what certain domestic actors are saying.”
She said, “It’s better for them to inspire long-term distrust of democratic institutions after the election.”
U.S. election security officials repeatedly issued warnings Tuesday night about information coming from Russian media or from Iranian and Chinese media.
The senior official said, “These are state institutions, these are state mouthpieces. They are to be treated in this way, with a great deal of suspicion.”
Anti-falsehood officials warned that Russia, Iran and China were not the only three countries trying to influence the U.S. election and its outcome.
They say as many as 30 countries are trying to influence the U.S. election, including U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as U.S. rivals Cuba and Venezuela.
By early Tuesday, intelligence officials said they had uncovered at least one disinformation campaign targeting Chinese-American voters. They said they had worked with other government agencies and social media companies to address the problem.
ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative website, said at least two dozen groups on the Chinese social media platform WeChat were trying to intimidate voters by spreading rumors that U.S. officials would use troops to quell possible unrest.
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