National: Obama promises retaliation against Russia over hacking during US election | The Guardian

Barack Obama has warned that the US will retaliate for Russian cyberattacks during the presidential election. According to extracts of an interview due to air on National Public Radio on Friday morning, the US president said he was waiting for a final report he has ordered into a range of Russian hacking attacks, but promised there would be a response. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action,” Obama said. “And we will – at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicised; some of it may not be.” The CIA has judged that the Russian cyber attacks, including the hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee, were intended to influence the election in Donald Trump’s favour. The FBI agrees that there was Russian hacking but has not as yet concluded it was intended to favour the Republican contender. Senators from both parties have called for a congressional enquiry, while Trump himself has rejected the reports and his office has derided the CIA.

Georgia: Two more states say same DHS computer accessed their websites | Atlanta Journal Constitution

The National Association of Secretaries of State wants federal officials to help resolve concerns that a Department of Homeland Security computer made questionable visits to a number of state computers in recent months. The organization, based in Washington, “wants to make sure that we help the states in question get a quick resolution of this matter from the Department of Homeland Security and that there is a way to resolve it to everyone’s satisfaction,” Kay Stimson, spokeswoman for the association, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday. The organization surveyed its members after Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s staff traced what it considered a cyber threat against its network to a DHS-owned computer. The agency has denied any attempt to penetrate Georgia’s protected systems. Two states — Kentucky and West Virginia — discovered visits to their systems by the same computer involved in the Georgia incidents. Both of those states, however, said the visits did not appear to be malicious.

National: Loath to Meddle in Election, Obama Delayed Blaming Russia for D.N.C. Hack | The New York Times

The Obama administration spent months deliberating whether to blame Russia for a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee, with action delayed in part because President Obama did not want to be blamed for politicizing intelligence, the White House said on Wednesday. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that “it would’ve been inappropriate for White House figures — including the president of the United States — to be rushing the intelligence community to expedite their analysis of the situation.” In particular, he described White House concerns that any statement by Mr. Obama would be viewed as using intelligence to meddle in the election on behalf of the president’s preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. An F.B.I. agent initially tried in September 2015 to alert officials from the Democratic National Committee that it was the target of a cyberattack by a group of hackers with links to Russian intelligence. But the administration waited until October 2016, more than a year later and after months of damaging leaks, to confirm that intelligence agencies believed the hacks were the product of a Russian intelligence operation.

National: Vladimir Putin ‘personally involved’ in US hack, report claims | The Guardian

US intelligence officials believe that Vladimir Putin was personally involved in hacking during the American election campaign as part of a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, NBC News has claimed. The Russian president personally instructed how material hacked from US Democrats was leaked and otherwise used, the US television network said, quoting two senior officials with access to this information. The officials said they have a “high level of confidence” in this new assessment, NBC reported. Last weekend the Washington Post reported a CIA evaluation that Russia had hacked the emails of US persons and institutions as a way to sway the election in favor of Republican Donald Trump, who defeated Clinton on 8 November.

National: Lindsey Graham Says Moscow Hacked His Presidential Campaign Email Account | International Business Times

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said he too was a victim of Russian hackers claiming they compromised his presidential campaign email account in June this year. The Republican lawmaker called for a tougher stance against Moscow. During the 2016 election race, the email account of former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign Chairman John Podesta was hacked and the emails were published on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The website also leaked thousands of emails allegedly acquired from Russian hackers who compromised several Democratic National Committee (DNC) accounts. In an interview Wednesday with CNN, Graham said: “I do believe the Russians hacked into the DNC. I do believe they hacked into Podesta’s email account. They hacked into my campaign account. I do believe that all the information released publicly hurt Clinton and didn’t hurt Trump. I don’t think the outcome of the election is in doubt. What we should do is not turn on each other but work as one people to push back on Russia.”

National: McMullin: GOP knew about, ignored Russian meddling in election | The Hill

Former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin on Wednesday charged that congressional Republicans were aware of Russian efforts to meddle in the U.S. presidential election but didn’t do anything about it. “Look, the truth is it’s been very obvious for leaders in Washington on the Republican side that the Russians have been undermining our democracy, or did undermine our democracy,” McMullin said at an event hosted by Politio. “I know because I know for a fact that they know this. It was a topic of discussion during the election and they chose not to stand up.” A secret CIA assessment first reported by The Washington Post concluded Russia intervened in the presidential election to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Trump and his aides have since blasted the report, with the president-elect calling it “ridiculous” that Russia would work to help him. McMullin said Republicans are now “sticking their heads in the sand on this issue as they did during the campaign.” “I will tell you, this is not a new issue,” he said.

National: Democratic House Candidates Were Also Targets of Russian Hacking | The New York Times

South Florida has long been a laboratory for some of the nation’s roughest politics, with techniques like phantom candidates created by political rivals to siphon off votes from their opponents, or so-called boleteras hired to illegally fill out stacks of absentee ballots on behalf of elderly or disabled voters. But there was never anything quite like the 2016 election campaign, when a handful of Democratic House candidates became targets of a Russian influence operation that made thousands of pages of documents stolen by hackers from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington available to Florida reporters and bloggers. “It was like I was standing out there naked,” said Annette Taddeo, a Democrat who lost her primary race after secret campaign documents were made public. “I just can’t describe it any other way. Our entire internal strategy plan was made public, and suddenly all this material was out there and could be used against me.” The impact of the information released by the hackers on candidates like Ms. Taddeo in Florida and others in nearly a dozen House races around the country was largely lost in the focus on the hacking attacks against the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. But this untold story underscores the effect the Russian operation had on the American electoral system.

Philippines: AES hacking issue raised anew and Smartmatic’s demand for P2B payment | The Manila Times

On December 9, 2016, a number of news websites carried the news that President Barack Obama had ordered a full review of possible Russian hacking of the recent United States election. Questioning whether an automated election system (AES) can be hacked or not raises concerns about the integrity of the AES and the credibility of election results that the system generates. The Philippine experience in automating the elections is no different. Concerns were raised on possible vulnerabilities of the AES used in the last three elections. Everything happens inside the machine and those internal mechanisms are shielded from public observation But can the voting machines really be hacked? Just as in the US, none of the vote counting machines (VCMs) used in the Philippine elections is connected to the Internet; they connect to the transmission network only when they are ready to transmit the election returns to the city or municipal canvassing and consolidation system (CCS) and other servers. Hackers would not be able to hack into the VCMs since the transmission network is configured as a virtual private network with the appropriate security measures in place, and the time period to perform hacking activities is very short. Potentially, however, the CCS and other servers are exposed to possible attacks since the CCS and other servers are open for much longer periods while they wait to receive transmissions from the VCMs and CCS.

National: Electors demand intelligence briefing before Electoral College vote | Politico

In its first show of public support for efforts questioning the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s victory, Hillary Clinton’s campaign said it is supporting a request by members of the Electoral College for an intelligence briefing on foreign intervention in the presidential election. “The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our national security,” Clinton’s former campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement on Monday. “Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed. Each day in October, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” he said. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”

National: Senate and House Leaders Call for Inquiry of Russian Hacking in Election | The New York Times

The top two Republicans in Congress said on Monday that they supported investigations into possible Russian cyberattacks to influence the American election, setting up a potential confrontation with President-elect Donald J. Trump in his first days in office. “Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing, and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, adding, “The Russians are not our friends.” Mr. McConnell’s support for investigating American intelligence findings that Moscow intervened in the election on Mr. Trump’s behalf could presage friction between the Republicans who control Congress, and who have long taken a hard line against Russia, and the president-elect, who has mocked the findings. Mr. McConnell also went out of his way to address Mr. Trump’s claim that the C.I.A. could not be trusted because of flawed intelligence before the Iraq war. “Let me say that I have the highest confidence in the intelligence community,” Mr. McConnell said, “and especially the Central Intelligence Agency. The C.I.A. is filled with selfless patriots, many of whom anonymously risk their lives for the American people.”

Georgia: Kemp questions DHS claim that no hacking attempt was made | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

While the U.S. Department of Homeland Security claimed last week that there was no attempt to hack into the state’s election computer system, Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office maintains it’s too soon to know if that’s true. A senior DHS official told Kemp last week that there was no attempt to hack Georgia’s network, but did acknowledge an agency employee left an electronic paper trail that might make it appear something nefarious was afoot. Kemp’s office said Monday that federal officials cannot say that with certainty. “After contacting our office late this afternoon, DHS has still not been able to confirm the origin or intent of this attack,” David Dove, Kemp’s chief of staff and legal counsel, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This was a reconnaissance scan that raised red flags with our vendor’s counter-threat unit.”

Wisconsin: Odd traffic on local websites puzzles officials | Ashland Daily Press

According to City of Ashland Cyber Security Consultant Eric Ellason and Bayfield County Director of Information Technology Paul Houck, both municipalities have seen an unusual amount of traffic coming to their sites from Russia. Ellason, who owns and operates SlickRockWeb, Inc., an Internet services firm in Ashland, has contracted with the City of Ashland to operate the city’s website. Ellason provides cyber security services to firms across the country, as well as remediation work for hacked websites. “With all of the talk about Russian involvement in the elections, it prompted me to go and look at the traffic recorded at the city’s website,” he said, That curiosity about what kind of traffic the city’s website was getting from Russia and other eastern European countries led to an unexpected result. “On most websites you are always going to get a little bit of traffic there, and every day there is always somebody looking for a security issue, so you are always going to see a baseline of traffic that is always a little suspect. Most of the time they don’t find anything, they are just trolling for security flaws,” Ellason said. “When I separated out just Russian traffic, there was a huge spike from about March 15 of this year.”

Germany: Russia’s next election operation: Germany | The Washington Post

In the murky world of intelligence, it isn’t that often that anyone has crystal clear, absolutely certain, 100 percent guaranteed advance knowledge of a forthcoming operation. But in Europe right now, there is one prediction that everyone is happy to make: In 2017, the Russian government will mount an open campaign to sway the German elections. We know that the Russians can do it. The CIA has confirmed that Russian cyberhackers procured material from the Hillary Clinton campaign that appeared, via WikiLeaks, at key moments in the election. Hacked emails became part of a successful trolling campaign to discredit Clinton (and continue to inspire hysteria in the form of Pizzagate, the bizarre conspiracy theory that just won’t die); during the campaign, Trump frequently repeated lines lifted directly from Russian propaganda, including threats that Obama “founded ISIS” and Clinton would “cause World War III.” Similar campaigns involving hacks, violent rallies and dark conspiracy theories have worked in other countries, including Georgia, Poland and Ukraine. Risky on the face of it, the U.S. operation did no harm to Russia’s interests. On the contrary, the pro-Russian candidate won; business looks set to continue as usual.

National: CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump win election, say reports | The Guardian

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in last month’s presidential election to boost Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, according to reports. A secret CIA assessment found that Russian operatives covertly interfered in the election campaign in an attempt to ensure the Republican candidate’s victory, the Washington Post reported, citing officials briefed on the matter. A separate report in the New York Times said intelligence officials had a “high confidence” that Russia was involved in hacking related to the election. The claims immediately drew a stinging rebuke from the president-elect’s transition team, which said in a statement: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” According to the Post’s report, officials briefed on the matter were told that intelligence agencies had found that individuals linked to the Russian government had provided WikiLeaks with thousands of confidential emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and others.

National: Key GOP senators join call for bipartisan Russia election probe, even as their leaders remain mum | The Washington Post

Two Senate Republicans joined demands for a bipartisan probe into Russia’s suspected election interference allegedly designed to bolster Donald Trump as questions continue to mount about the president-elect’s expected decision to nominate a secretary of state candidate with close ties to Russia. Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) — the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee — joined calls by incoming Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Armed Services ranking Democrat Jack Reed (R.I.) for a thorough, bipartisan investigation of Russian influence in the U.S. elections. Their statement came two days after The Washington Post reported the CIA’s private conclusion that Russia’s activities were intended to tip the scales to help Trump. “Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American,” the four senators said in a statement on Sunday morning. “Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks.”

National: Barack Obama orders ‘full review’ of possible Russian hacking in US election | The Guardian

Barack Obama has ordered US intelligence to review evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after coming under sustained pressure from congressional Democrats. The review will be one of Obama’s final instructions to the intelligence agencies, which will soon report to Donald Trump, whom congressional Democrats consider the beneficiary of a hack targeting the Democratic National Committee. Lisa Monaco, the White House counterterrorism director, announced what she called a “full review” at a breakfast briefing sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor on Friday. At the White House press briefing later on Friday, Eric Schultz, the deputy White House press secretary, denied the review was “an effort to challenge the outcome of the election”. “We have acknowledged who won the election,” he said. “It wasn’t the candidate the president campaigned for. He has gone out of his way to ensure a smooth transition of power.”

Editorials: Russia’s Hand in America’s Election | The New York Times

It’s not hard to see why Russia would have been tempted to tip the scales in America’s presidential election. American defense officials have been warning about Russia’s capabilities and dangerous intentions, calling Moscow the gravest threat to the United States. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, made it clear her administration would redouble efforts to punish and isolate Moscow for war crimes in Syria’s civil war and its aggression toward Ukraine and other neighbors. “I’ve stood up to Russia,” Ms. Clinton said during a debate in the fall. “I’ve taken Putin on and I would do that as president.” In Mr. Trump, the Russians had reason to see a malleable political novice, one who had surrounded himself with Kremlin lackeys. Mr. Trump bragged that the Russian president had once called him “brilliant.” In July, Mr. Trump said he hoped Russia would hack and divulge more of Mrs. Clinton’s emails, an astonishing invitation to a foreign power that appeared already to be meddling in an American election.

Georgia: Homeland Security Says Georgia Computer Breach Incident Was Likely Inadvertent | Wall Street Journal

The Department of Homeland Security has reached a preliminary conclusion that what appeared to be an attempted breach of Georgia’s computer systems was due to an inadvertent configuration of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection computer, an official familiar with the matter said. The DHS official said a preliminary investigation had traced the incident to the computer of an employee at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection whose job responsibilities included verifying professional licensing information that are often maintained by state secretaries of state.

Europe: Russian involvement in US vote raises fears for European elections | The Guardian

The CIA’s conclusion that Russia covertly intervened to swing last month’s presidential election in favour of Donald Trump but its actions did not place the overall credibility of the result in doubt will be hard to swallow for some. The classified CIA investigation, which has not been published, may also have implications for the integrity of Britain’s Brexit referendum last June, and how upcoming elections in France and Germany could be vulnerable to Russian manipulation. The latest revelations are not entirely new. What is fresh is the bald assertion that Moscow was working for Trump. Democrats have been agitating for months for more decisive action by the White House following earlier reports of Russian-inspired hacking designed to undermine their candidate, Hillary Clinton. Some of the thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and members of Clinton’s campaign staff that were leaked, reportedly by Russian proxies, were used to reinforce a key Trump campaign narrative, that of “Lying Hillary”.

National: Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House | The Washington Post

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter. Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances. “It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

Ghana: Elections Marred by Attempt to Hack Website and Calls for the President to Concede | Foreign Policy

Ghana’s presidential elections Wednesday started off surprisingly well, with voters lining up hours early at some polling places — using stones to save their place in line — and congratulations pouring in from the (real) U.S. Embassy in Ghana. Fears of election-day violence and confusion seemed misplaced. Then it all came apart. First, the electoral commission’s website was victim to a hack attempt. Also, an image circulating on Twitter said that the New Patriotic Party’s Nana Akufo-Addo had won the day, forcing the commission to frantically tweet for voters to ignore the fake news. Though votes were still being counted Thursday, the Akufo-Addo camp announced Thursday that, according to its tabulations, Akufo-Addo did in fact have a strong lead. They called for the incumbent, President John Mahama, who’s been in power since 2012, to concede. That didn’t sit well. Mahama’s camp called the calls for concession “treasonable.”

Georgia: Secretary of State’s office says it has traced an attempted voter hack to the Department of Homeland Security | PCWorld

Georgia’s secretary of state says the state was hit with an attempted hack of its voter registration database from an IP address linked to the federal Department of Homeland Security. The allegation by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp is one of the more bizarre charges to come up in the recent spate of alarms about voting-system hacks. He said in a Facebook post on Thursday that he had been made aware of the failed attempt to breach the firewall protecting Georgia’s voter registration database. The attack was traced to an Internet Protocol address associated with DHS, he said. This morning I sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding to know why,” he said in the post. The DHS said it had received the letter. “We are looking into the matter. DHS takes the trust of our public and private sector partners seriously, and we will respond to Secretary Kemp directly,” the department said in a statement.

Germany: After a Cyberattack, Germany Fears Election Disruption | The New York Times

After hackers infiltrated the German Parliament’s computer network in May 2015, it took nearly a year before the country’s intelligence agency concluded that the attack was most likely the work of their Russian counterparts. Last week, when 900,000 Germans lost access to internet and telephone services, it took a matter of hours before politicians began pointing fingers at Moscow. Berlin is now concerned that Germany will become the next focus of Moscow’s campaign to destabilize Western democracies as national elections approach next year. Those fears intensified after the Obama administration accused the Russian government of attacking Democratic Party emails during the American presidential campaign.

Germany: Spy Chief: Russia Trying To ‘Destabilize’ Germany Ahead Of Elections | RFERL

German intelligence says Russia is trying to destabilize German society with an intensifying campaign of propaganda, disinformation, and cyberattacks ahead of federal elections next year. “We see aggressive and increased cyberspying and cyberoperations that could potentially endanger German government officials, members of parliament, and employees of democratic parties,” Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the domestic BfV intelligence agency, said in a December 8 statement. The warning came two months after U.S. intelligence publicly accused Russia of directing cyberattacks against American political figures and organizations in order to interfere with the U.S. electoral process ahead of the November 8 presidential election.

United Kingdom: Hostile states pose ‘fundamental threat’ to Europe, says MI6 chief | The Guardian

The head of the British intelligence agency MI6, Alex Younger, has said cyber-attacks, propaganda and subversion from hostile states pose a “fundamental threat” to European democracies, including the UK. In a rare speech by an MI6 chief while in office, Younger did not specifically name Russia but left no doubt that this was the target of his remarks. Russia has been accused of interfering in the US presidential election and there are concerns it could do the same in French and German elections next year. He did mention Russia in relation to Syria, portraying Russian military support for the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, in the takeover of Aleppo and elsewhere as potentially creating a long-term problem that could increase radicalisation. “In Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace. The human tragedy is heartbreaking,” Younger said.

Ghana: Election commission website hacked | BBC

Hackers have targeted the website of Ghana’s electoral commission as votes are counted after tightly contested elections.
The commission says the website is up again, but it it is currently blank. The commission has tweeted, urging people to ignore “fake results” circulating on social media. President John Mahama is facing a strong challenge from main opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo in a campaign dominated by Ghana’s faltering economy. Wednesday’s election passed off peacefully, but voting was postponed to Thursday in one constituency after voting material failed to arrive on time.

Editorials: Did Russia meddle in our presidential election? | Los Angeles Times

Seven members of the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote to President Obama this week asking him to declassify and make public “additional information concerning the Russian government and the U.S. election” that committee members apparently have learned about in confidential briefings. The president should take their advice. Cynics might be tempted to view their letter — which was signed only by Democrats and an independent senator who caucuses with them — as a partisan ploy designed to buttress the argument that Donald Trump’s victory was rendered illegitimate by Russian meddling on his behalf. But seeking information about possible Russian meddling in the election shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

Editorials: Paper trail can thwart voter fraud | Alex Halderman/The Detroit News

How might a foreign government hack America’s voting machines? Here’s one possible scenario. First, the attackers would probe election offices well in advance in order to find ways to break into their computers. Closer to the election, when it was clear from polling data which states would have close electoral margins, the attackers might spread malware into voting machines in some of these states, rigging the machines to shift a few percent of the vote to favor their desired candidate. This malware would likely be designed to remain inactive during pre-election tests, do its dirty business during the election, then erase itself when the polls close. A skilled attacker’s work might leave no visible signs — though the country might be surprised when results in several close states were off from pre-election polls.

National: Recounts Are Really About A Cyberattack Probe | international Business Times

Neither Jill Stein nor Hillary Clinton are realistically expecting the outcome of the 2016 presidential election to change if there are statewide recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Instead, Stein is pushing for contentious and exhaustive recount efforts in each state in part to draw attention to the integrity of the nationwide voting system after a campaign season chock-full of foreign interferences, cyberattacks on the Democratic Party and even a purported hack on electronic voting machines. Stein raised nearly $6.3 million in donations toward her goal of filing for recounts in three key battleground states where Trump won by small margins. “After a presidential election tarnished by the use of outdated and unreliable machines and accusations of irregularities and hacks, people of all political persuasions are asking if our election results are reliable,” Stein said in a statement on Monday. “We must recount the votes so we can build trust in our election system.”

National: Senators call for declassification of files on Russia’s role in US election | The Guardian

Seven Democratic and Democratic-aligned members of the Senate intelligence committee have hinted that significant information about Russian interference in the US presidential election remains secret and ought to be declassified. The seven senators, including the incoming ranking member Mark Warner of Virginia, wrote to Barack Obama to request he declassify relevant intelligence on the election. They did not directly accuse the Russian government or President-elect Donald Trump, a Republican, of wrongdoing in the letter. “We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian government and the US election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels,” wrote Warner and his colleagues Ron Wyden of Oregon, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and independent Angus King of Maine.