Quick takes // By Ben FrankelThe Siberian candidate: Russia’s 2-pronged campaign to undermine the U.S. political system
We now know what the U.S. intelligence community has known for a while: Vladimir Putin has instructed the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) and GRU (the Russian military’s main intelligence agency) to use their considerable cyberwarfare capabilities to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 8 November. The Russian digital campaign of interference in the U.S. electoral process has intensified. We can only guess what additional actions the Russian government hackers will take in the days immediately before 8 November – and on election day itself.
We now know what the U.S. intelligence community has known for a while: Vladimir Putin has instructed the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) and GRU (the Russian military’s main intelligence agency) to use their considerable cyberwarfare capabilities to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 8 November.
The reason: It is difficult to think of any development which will better serve Russia’s interests than having Trump installed in the White House.
This is not only because of what we already know – or, rather, guess — about Trump’s policy preferences. Even more worrisome is the fact that Putin, a clever and ruthless former KGP operative, has taken Trump’s measure. Putin knows he can play the vain, impetuous, and ignorant Trump like a fiddle.
The Russian digital campaign has two independent, but related, efforts – one short-term, the other long-term.
The short-term campaign aims to subvert the 8 November presidential elections
— Hacking the computer systems of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign in order to steal e-mails, memos, minutes of meetings, and other internal communications. The documents – some authentic, some fake, and some doctored (containing a mix of both authentic and fake material) are then released to WikiLeaks – an organization which was founded on noble ideals, but which is now not much more than the Kremlin’s propaganda arm. WikiLeaks, in coordination with Russia, then publishes the documents – with the timing of the publishing determined by the degree of damage the publishing will cause the Clinton campaign.
— The Russian government hackers have also been trying to find ways to interfere with the election process itself. Hackers from the same two groups which had broken into the computer systems of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign have also hacked the computer systems of the election governing bodies in twenty-three states. The electronic voting machines now used by most states are not connected to the Internet, so direct interference with the act of voting is difficult – but the Russian hackers have other ways to interfere in the presidential election in the effort to help Trump win.
The evidence so far suggests that the hackers have focused on gaining access to voter rolls and to the personal information of voters. As FBI director James Comey said, the Russian hackers have been “poking” around to see how far they can go to manipulating the 8 November elections.