As the 2024 US presidential election draws to a close, and with Donald Trump on the ballot once again, Russian actors are spreading disinformation with alarming and unprecedented intensity, and US officials say the Kremlin’s efforts to Undermining confidence in the elections and fomenting unrest are likely to continue into January.
Russian disinformation operations have had a prominent presence in US elections since the Kremlin’s groundbreaking influence campaign during the 2016 presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Trump. But with so much scrutiny and investigation into the mechanisms and impact of that operation (including the use of hacking and leak tactics against the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign and other targets), Russia was less technically aggressive and more operationally focused. of influence in the country. 2020 midterm and presidential elections. That momentary respite is now over.
In calls with reporters Monday night and Tuesday, as well as in public statements, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials working on election security repeatedly warned that foreign influence actors, including Iran, but “particularly Russia,” are stepping up with a “growing volume of inauthentic content online.” And while officials say they have not detected cyberattacks beyond floods of spam traffic or DDoS attacks, which attempt to take election-related sites offline, Russian activity has become increasingly threatening.
On Tuesday morning, for example, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger attributed multiple bomb threats against two Georgia polling stations to Russia. The threats were deemed not credible, but they briefly disrupted voting at both polling places. The FBI aggregate Later on Tuesday, voting sites in “several states” faced non-credible bomb threats that appeared to “originate from Russian email domains.”
“What we have seen in 2024 is a greater scope and scale of foreign influence operations than in previous cycles, and yes, Russia presents, in terms of our adversaries, the greatest degree of capability and sophistication,” said Cait Conley, senior advisor del, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), told reporters in a call Tuesday afternoon. “Overall, I think the variety of tactics we’re seeing being employed and the level of sophistication is greater than in previous cycles.”
in a joint declaration On Monday night, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, CISA and the FBI emphasized that “Russia is the most active threat” to the US elections. “Influencers linked to Russia in particular are fabricating videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the electoral process, and suggest that Americans are using violence against each other because of their preferences.” policies,” they wrote.
