The warnings, issued Thursday, were issued in the days leading up to the presidential election. Demonstrates the increasing security posture of the government. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe announced in a hastily arranged news conference that Iran and Russia were interfering in the election and that both countries had obtained some information on voter registration, although Ratcliffe did not specify what information he had. Publicly available.
Ratcliffe said Iran is responsible for the spoiled emails that come from far-right groups and threaten Democratic voters, adding that their intent was to hurt President Donald Trump – a statement that drew criticism from Democrats who tried to oust Trump. Was accused of doing. To meet the risk of interference posed by Russia and Iran.
Two separate warnings, written jointly by the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, contained federal warnings about stolen data on Thursday, and Ratcliffe and Christopher Ware, director of the FBI, provided further details on Wednesday.
Both warnings issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency did not indicate that Russian or Iranian hackers had tampered with the US election system. But people should be on the alert in past attacks, officials said. The warning states that the Iranian attackers used legal means to spread anti-American propaganda aimed at disrupting the election. Iranians have also used allegedly distributed denial-of-service attacks, database attacks and phishing campaigns to sow chaos.
The Russian state-sponsored attackers have tried to infiltrate “dozens” of state and local governments and aviation networks, the warning said.
“On October 1, 2020, [Russian attackers] Excluded data from at least two victim servers, “the warning said.
Ratcliffe said in his news conference that the intelligence community was warning people about the steps taken by Iran and Russia to interfere in the elections.
“We’ve already seen Iran sending emails designed to intimidate voters, provoke social unrest and hurt President Trump,” Ratcliffe said. The government has not seen similar action from Russia but they know they have obtained voter information. As they did in 2016. ”
Democrats criticize Rat Tuckleef
Ratcliffe’s statement said the emails, which he believed belonged to the far-right group, Proud Boys, were trying to hurt Trump, with several Democrats, including California House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reprimanding him, who was briefed on the matter on Thursday.
“I think we have to be very careful about any statements coming from the intelligence community about the election at this time,” he told reporters as he left the House Intelligence Committee.
“The public can’t rely on what they hear from the director of national intelligence without evidence on the table,” Adam Dum Schiff, chairman of California’s Democrat House Intelligence, said in an MSNBC interview Wednesday evening.
Democrats have accused Ratcliffe of leaking intelligence on a selective basis for political purposes to help Trump, most recently in 2016 with the release of unconfirmed Russian intelligence about Hillary Clinton and Russia.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence responded to Ratcliffe’s criticism by arguing that his comments were consistent with previous assessments of the intelligence community’s intentions when it comes to interfering in the 2020 race.
Russia, Iran and China all aim to interfere in the 2020 election, Ivelina, the intelligence community’s top election security official, said in August Gust.
“The ICA has not made any changes to our assessment of Iran’s intentions,” Scotch added.
Not all Democrats were critical of Ratcliffe. Sen. Mark Werner of Virginia, a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters Thursday that he understood why Tuckleef made the remarks about attempts to hurt Trump.
“I urge the intelligence community to continue to move forward to inform the American public about foreign intervention, so the announcement made last night on that basis was good.” Warner said. “It’s extraordinarily important that the intelligence community speaks the truth on authority, and you get questions like this if you don’t have that deal on a regular basis, but I understand why Director Ratcliffe made his comment.”
Congressmen from both parties released letters and statements on Thursday seeking a briefing from Ratcliffe on the matter.
Emails attributed to Tehran by the intelligence community were sent to registered voters from the “[email protected]” email address and to recipients “Vote for Trump!”
Thousands of emails were sent to people in the United States as part of a suspected Iranian campaign, Google said late Wednesday night following an announcement by the intelligence community. Google said about 25,000 emails were sent to Gmail users – 90% of those emails were blocked by Gmail’s spam filters, meaning 2,500 American Gmail users would have received the messages.
A Google spokesman said the company was cooperating with the FBI. Google is a major provider of email services. Micro .ft and Yahoo (owned by Verizon Media), which both run major email platforms, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Iran allowed but no one on Russia
The Treasury Department’s sanctions were imposed on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Guards Codes Force, the Bayan Rasaneh Goster Organization, the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union, and the International Union of Virtual Media.
The Treasury said in a statement that the failed attempts by the Iranian regime have targeted a global audience through various secret media organizations. “The disinformation campaign run by the Iranian regime focuses on disseminating readers through social media platforms and messaging applications, and frequently includes misrepresentation information.”
“During the months of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Byn Gostar’s employees plan to influence the election by exploiting social issues in the United States and defaming U.S. political figures, including the COVID-19 epidemic,” the agency said.
“In the summer of 2020, more recently, Bain Gostar was ready to carry out a series of directed influence operations in the U.S. public before the presidential election.”
The Treasury Department did not issue any new sanctions against Russia on Thursday, citing the intelligence community a day earlier. The Treasury Department approved Ukrainian MLA Rindri Derkach last month, and he worked to discredit Joe Biden’s campaign as part of Moscow’s election interference efforts, accusing him of being an “active Russian agent.”
CNN’s Donnie O’Sullivan, Lynn Fox and Kristen Wilson contributed to the report.
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