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Are US elections Safe? Chris Krebs is optimistic
The debate around the US banning TikTok is a proxy for a larger question: How safe are democracies from high-tech threats, especially from places like China and Russia?
There are genuine concerns about the integrity of elections. What are the threats out there and what can be done about it? No one understands this issue better than Chris Krebs. Krebs is best known as the former director of the US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
In a high-profile showdown, Donald Trump fired Krebs in November 2020, after CISA publicly affirmed that the election was among the “most secure in history” and that the allegations of election corruption were flat-out wrong. Since then, Krebs has become the chief public policy officer at SentinelOne and cochairs the Aspen Institute’s U.S. Cybersecurity Working Group, and he remains at the forefront of the cyber threat world.
GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon spoke to him this week about what we should expect in this volatile election year.
Solomon: How would you compare the cyber threat landscape now to the election four years ago? Have the rapid advances in AI made a material difference?
Chris Krebs: The general threat environment related to elections tracks against the broader cyber threat environment. The difference here is that beyond just pure technical attacks on election systems, election infrastructure, and on campaigns themselves, we have a parallel threat of information operations, and influence operations —what we more broadly call disinformation.
This has picked up almost exponentially since 2016, when the Russians, as detailed in the Intelligence Community Assessment of January 2017, showed that you can get into the middle of domestic elections and pour kerosene on that conversation. That means it jumps into the real world, potentially even culminating in political violence like we saw on Jan. 6.
We saw the Iranians follow the lead in 2020. The intelligence community released another report in December that talked about how the Chinese attempted to influence the 2022 elections. We've seen the Russians are active too through a group we track called Doppelganger, specifically targeting the debate around the border and immigration in the US.
Solomon: When you say Doppelganger is “active,” what exactly does that mean in real terms?
Krebs: They use synthetic personas or take over existing personas that have some element of credibility and jump into the online discourse. They also use Pink Slime websites, which is basically fake media, and then get picked up through social media and move over to traditional media. They are taking existing divides and amplifying the discontent.
Solomon: Does it have a material impact on, say, election results?
Krebs: I was at an event back in 2019, and a former governor came up to me as we were talking about prepping for the 2020 election and said: “Hey, everything you just talked about sounds like opposition research, typical electioneering, and hijinks.”
And you know what? That's not totally wrong. But there is a difference.
Rather than just being normal domestic politics, now we have a foreign security service that's inserting itself in driving discourse domestically. And that's where there are tools that the intelligence services here in the US as well as our allies in the West have the ability to go in and disrupt.
They can get onto foreign networks and say, “Hey, I know that account right there. I am able to determine that the account which is pushing this narrative is controlled by the Russian security services, and we can do something with that.”
But here is the key: Once you have a social media influencer here in the US that picks up that narrative and runs with it, well, now, it's effectively fair game. It's part of the conversation, First Amendment protected.
Solomon: Let's move to the other side. What do you do about it without violating the privacy and free speech civil liberties of citizens?
Krebs: This is really the political question of the day. In fact, just last week there was a Supreme Court hearing on Murthy v. Missouri that gets to this question of government and platforms working together. (Editor’s note: The case hinges on whether the government’s efforts to combat misinformation online around elections and COVID constitute a form of censorship). Based on my read, the Supreme Court was largely being dismissive of Missouri and Louisiana's arguments in that case. But we'll see what happens.
I think the bigger issue is that there is this broader conflict, particularly with China, and it is a hot cyber war. Cyber war from their military doctrine has a technical leg and there's a psychological leg. And as we see it, there are a number of different approaches.
For example, India has outlawed and banned hundreds of Chinese origin apps, including WeChat and TikTok and a few others. The US has been much more discreet in combating Chinese technology. The recent actions by the US Congress and the House of Representatives are much more focused on getting the foreign control piece out of the conversation and requiring divestitures.
Solomon: Chris, what’s the biggest cyber threat to the elections?
Krebs: Based on my conversations with law enforcement and the national security community, the number one request that they're getting from election officials isn't on the cyber side. It isn't on the disinformation side. It's on physical threats to election workers. We're talking about doxing, we're talking about swatting, we're talking about people physically intimidating at the polls and at offices. And this is resulting in election officials resigning and quitting and not showing up.
How do we protect those real American heroes who are making sure that we get to follow through on our civic duty of voting and elections? If those election workers aren't there, it's going to be a lot harder for you and me to get out there and vote.
Solomon: What is your biggest concern about AI technology galloping ahead of regulations?
Krebs: Here in the United States, I'm not too worried about regulation getting in front of AI. When you look at the recent AI executive order out of the Biden administration, it's about transparency and even the threshold they set for compute power and operations is about four times higher than the most advanced publicly available generative AI. And even if you cross that threshold, the most you have to do is tell the government that you're building or training that model and show safety and red teaming results, which hardly seems onerous to me.
The Europeans are taking a different approach, more of a regulate first, ask questions later, which I think is going to limit some of their ability to truly be at the bleeding edge of AI.
But I'll tell you this: We are using AI and cybersecurity to a much greater effect and impact than the bad guys right now. The best they can do right now is use it for social engineering, for writing better phishing emails, for some research, and for functionality. We are not seeing credible reports of AI being used to write new innovative malware. But in the meantime, we are giving tools that are AI powered to the threat hunters that have really advanced capabilities to go find bad stuff, to improve configurations, and ultimately take the security operations piece and supercharge it.
Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor stand as they are recognized before an address from US President Joe Biden in the Canadian House of Commons on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Canada, March 24, 2023.
Canada’s “Two Michaels” now have two different stories
Spavor and Kovrig were arrested shortly after Canada detained Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Weng Zhou on charges of violating American prohibitions on doing business with Iran. The two men spent over 1,000 days in prison, including many in solitary confinement, and were subject to severe forms of interrogation. Spavor was sentenced to 11 years and Kovrig was awaiting sentencing when the pair were released after the US struck an agreement in 2021 to allow Weng Zhou to return to China.
At the time of their arrest, Spavor, a fluent Korean speaker, ran a tourism operation in North Korea, which allowed him to spend time socializing with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Spavor gave unspecified information about these encounters to Kovrig, who it is alleged secretly passed it on to the Canadian government and its Five Eyes partners.
At the time, Kovrig did not have a diplomatic passport, which may have led Spavor to believe that Kovrig was no longer in contact with the government or the intelligence community and that he would not pass on any information shared with him. Kovrig was working for a non-governmental think tank, the International Crisis Group, but had previously worked in Global Affairs Canada and its Global Security Reporting Program before taking a leave of absence in 2017.
Global Affairs has so far denied the validity of Spavor’s claims, saying that "Perpetuating the notion that either Michael was involved in espionage is only perpetuating a false narrative under which they were detained by China." For his part, Spavor is now seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement from the Canadian government and has retained John K. Phillips, the lawyer who secured a CA$10.5 million settlement for alleged terrorist Omar Khadr over Ottawa’s refusal to allow him to serve his sentence in Canada rather than at the notorious US prison at Guantanamo Bay.A demonstrator holds a banner reading "Where are Dom and Bruno" during a protest.
Hard Numbers: Amazon arrests, UK and EU tussle (again), Russian spy found at ICC, COVID vaccines … for babies
2: Two brothers have been arrested in connection with the murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest. Authorities believe one of the suspects ambushed the victims prior to the attack. Phillips and Pereira worked to expose and prevent illegal fishing and mining in the rainforest.
24: The British government is deciding whether to ditch a European human rights pact it passed into law 24 years ago after the European Court of Human Rights forced London to freeze a controversial immigration policy mandating the transfer of asylum seekers to Rwanda. This latest row comes as the UK and EU are already at loggerheads over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
20: Dutch authorities say they caught a Russian spy trying to infiltrate the International Criminal Court at the Hague, which is investigating alleged war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine. The suspect, who was posing as a Brazilian intern, will face legal proceedings in Brazil. This breach isn’t new: the Dutch say they’ve expelled some 20 Russian spies in recent years.
20 million: The US Food and Drug Administration has authorized the use of Moderna and Pfizer/BioNtech vaccines for children as young as six months. Around 20 million American kids under the age of 5 will now be eligible for the shot.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
The word Pegasus, binary code and the Spanish flag.
Hard Numbers: Spain spy chief sacked, US gun deaths soar, Angolan diamonds dull, Ecuador prison explodes (again)
63: Spain’s spy chief Paz Esteban has been fired over revelations that the intelligence community had targeted 63 Catalan independence activists with the controversial Pegasus spyware.
35: Gun-related homicides in the US shot up 35% during the first year of the pandemic, the largest annual increase ever recorded, according to the CDC. Experts attribute the surge to higher firearms sales and the economic and psychological disruptions caused by the pandemic. The murder rate for young Black men was more than 20 times as high as it was for white men of the same age.
10.05 million: Angola’s state diamond producer has warned that its output could fall by a third this year, to 10.05 million carats, because US and European sanctions against Moscow are interfering with deliveries of diamond mining equipment from Russia.
44: At least 44 inmates were killed in a prison riot in Ecuador this week. The violence at the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas facility was sparked by a drug gang rivalry, but experts say prison overcrowding is an ongoing problem in the Andean country, where riots like this are common.
Hard Numbers: US economy down, Bennett picks up his tab, no ransom in Nigeria, South Koreans spy for North
1.4: US economic growth shrank by 1.4% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022, the first contraction since the pandemic began. Bad news for President Biden, but a recession can still be avoided if Americans keep spending, hiring remains strong, and wages keep pace with inflation.
7,400: Israel's PM Naftali Bennett says he'll pay for his own meals from now on after running up a $7,400 monthly food tab covered by taxpayer money. Bennett, a self-made millionaire who still lives in his private residence, claims to spend three times less per month than his predecessor Bibi Netanyahu, famous for his lavish lifestyle.
15: Nigeria has updated its terror law in a bid to fix its kidnapping problem. Anyone who pays a ransom now faces a minimum 15-year sentence, and abductors who kill now face the death penalty.
2: Two South Koreans have been arrested for allegedly passing secrets to the North. The pair — a crypto CEO and an army officer — are accused of sharing login details for South Korea's joint military command in exchange for a hefty payday in Bitcoin.Australian academic freed in Iran hails end of 'traumatic ordeal'
Kylie Moore-Gilbert said she now faces a "challenging period of adjustment".
Australia charges first person under foreign interference law
SYDNEY (REUTERS) - Australian police said a Melbourne man who appeared in court on Thursday (Nov 5) was the first person charged with foreign interference under new legislation introduced in 2018.
Espionage in Australia at higher levels than Cold War, spy chief warns
SYDNEY (AFP) - Espionage in Australia had eclipsed Cold War levels, the country's spymaster told Parliament on Tuesday (Oct 20), in a speech warning that citizens were being monitored and harassed by foreign powers.