June 8, 2017

RUSSIAN CYBERATTACKS ON U.S VOTING SOFTWARE.

Lintao Zhang/Pool/Getty Images
Russian military intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software 

A top-secret report from the National Security Agency, which was leaked to The Intercept, concluded that agents of the Russian government attempted to directly interfere with U.S. voting software before the 2016 presidential election.
  • “Russian military intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election.”

  • The report states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks.

  • “The NSA analysis does not draw conclusions about whether the interference had any effect on the election’s outcome and concedes that much remains unknown about the extent of the hackers’ accomplishments. However, the report raises the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results.”
 A government contractor has been charged with passing along the NSA document to the Intercept. Devlin Barrett reports: “Reality Leigh Winner was accused of gathering, transmitting or losing defense information — the first criminal charge filed in a leak investigation during the Trump administration. Winner was arrested Saturday and the case was revealed Monday. ... According to court documents, Winner had a top-security clearance as an active-duty member of the Air Force from January 2013 until February of this year.”

An Instagram image of Reality Leigh Winner, 25, who was charged with sending classified material to a news website. via Reuters



  • The Intercept article relied on a leaked top-secret NSA report put together just last month. And sure enough, mere hours after the article went live, the Justice Department announced the charging of Reality Winner (that's really her name), a 25-year-old working in Georgia for the NSA contractor Pluribus International Corporation, for "removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet." Winner had been arrested this past Saturday, before the Intercept article’s release. [Justice Department] . According to court documents, Winner had a top-security clearance as an active-duty member of the Air Force from January 2013 until February of this year.”
  • Of course, it’s very possible the government is not telling the truth. The government lies about classified stuff all the time! In a statement, the Intercept noted, “It is important to keep in mind that these documents contain unproven assertions and speculation designed to serve the government’s agenda and as such warrant skepticism. Winner faces allegations that have not been proven. The same is true of the FBI’s claims about how it came to arrest Winner.” [The Intercept] 
  • In a Twitter thread, Barton Gellman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who broke the Edward Snowden leak story for the Washington Post, strongly condemned the outlet’s handling of the story, saying it was a “catastrophic failure of source protection. … Everyone makes mistakes, but this was a bad one.” [Barton Gellman] 
  • So what do we know about the leaker? She served as a linguist in the Air Force for six years, and speaks Pashto, Farsi, and Dari. And her social media presence suggests she's a strong opponent of President Trump, marking election night by tweeting, "Well. People suck," and commenting on Trump's travel ban that "the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the white house." [CNN / Madison Park] 
  • The charges Winner faces could lead to up to 10 years in prison, but typically leak prosecutions result in sentences more like one to three years. Notably, this is the first criminal leak case under Trump, who's been extremely vocal in his displeasure at how his administration leaks like a sieve. [NYT / Charlie Savage] 
  • As for the actual substance of the leak, the reporters were clear to state that there's no evidence Russia hacked actual voting machines or altered tallies in any way whatsoever. But it's a reminder that our voting systems are vulnerable, and that election integrity would be improved if 100 percent of votes resulted in a paper ballot, whether it's printed from a touchscreen machine or filled out with a pencil or what have you. [Vox / Timothy B. Lee​]