Combating Russia’s “fake news”; what is “Russian meddling”?;foreign hackers plot next attack, and more

When we talk about Russian meddling, what do we actually mean? (Philip Bump, Washington Post)
To hear President Trump tell it, Russia didn’t do much of anything at all to interfere with the 2016 election. Trump’s motivation for denying Russian involvement seems pretty simple. His electoral victory was remarkably narrow, coming down to 78,000 votes in three states that handed him the electoral college margin necessary to be inaugurated. Trump has tried to spin that narrow electoral-vote win as a triumphant achievement, but that’s simply not the case. He won, but he barely won. And he clearly fumes at the idea that people might credit that narrow victory to Russian interference rather than to his own “great campaign,” a campaign powered by his unique political instincts. So, after his victory, the investigation into how Russia attempted to undermine the election became a “witch hunt” in Trump’s telling, a “Russian hoax” that was created by the Democrats to distract from their 2016 loss. That view of the events of 2016 has had a direct consequence: Trump has shown no interest in investigating what actually happened two years ago and bolstering America’s defenses against it happening again. Also, a survey from Marist released last week shows that most Americans think it’s unlikely that Russia will interfere in the midterms — with more than three-quarters of Republicans apparently agreeing with the arguments coming from the president at the head of their party. And this despite the dire –and unanimous – warning by the U.S. intelligence community, expressed by Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence in a Tuesday testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said the Russian efforts to influence U.S. politics are continuing – in part because of their success in 2016. “There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations,” Coats said. There are at least four ways in which Russians are known or believed to have tried to influence the election: Hacking political organizations and staff; hacking voter rolls and systems; creating and sharing news stories about the election; and social media outreach, bots and trolls.

Russian hackers who attacked US Senate seem to have also disrupted the Olympic Games (Dan Alexe, New Europe)
The Russian intelligence hacking group ‘Fancy Bear’, who recently set up a sophisticated email “phishing” scheme designed to get access to US Senate emails and targeted U.S. defense contractors, was reportedly behind the disruption of the Olympics opening ceremony on February 9.

BuzzFeed sues DNC for information regarding alleged Russian email hack (Tom McKay, Gizmodo)
News outlet BuzzFeed is suing the Democratic National Committee in an effort to get it to disclose more information about how Russian hackers allegedly penetrated its email system in 2016 as part of an effort to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign in favor of Donald Trump.

As foreign hackers plot next attack, Washington struggles to shore up vulnerable voting systems (Evan Halper and Chris Megerian, Los Angeles Times)
Even as it is consumed by political fallout from Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, Washington is still struggling to respond to what many officials see as an imminent national security threat: a network of voting systems alarmingly vulnerable to foreign attack.

How WA state is preparing for 2018 election interference (Natalie Brand, K5News)

The nation’s top intelligence officials warned Senators on Tuesday that Russia will target the 2018 elections in an ongoing attempt to undermine democracy and the American political process. “Frankly, the United States is under attack,” said Director of National Intelligence Director Dan Coats. It’s a threat Washington’s Secretary of State Kim Wyman knows all too well.

Ill-prepared and underfunded, election officials brace for more cyberattacks (Alan Greenblatt, Governing)
Federal intelligence officials warned Congress on Tuesday that Russia will again attempt to influence the elections through cyber-warfare. New reports shed light on the inadequacy of state and local security systems.

What Finland can teach the West about countering Russia’s hybrid threats (Mackenzie Weinger, World Politics Review)
The European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, known as the Hybrid CoE, was founded last year in Helsinki by a dozen member states of the European Union and NATO. It defines hybrid threats as the fusion of irregular and regular tools—everything from tweets to tanks—that both state and nonstate actors, like terrorist groups, are using to try to destabilize countries and institutions. Its mission is to study those threats and advise participating countries, as well as other members of the EU and NATO, on how best to counter them.

The Russians are coming (Paul Waldman, The Week)
Is Russian President Vladimir Putin satisfied? According to one line of analysis, despite the victory of his favored candidate, he hasn’t really gotten what he wanted from his country’s unprecedented effort to manipulate the American presidential election in 2016. There haven’t been sweeping changes in American policy toward Russia, and specific irritants like the Magnitsky Act remain in place. And after all, the election itself wasn’t the goal; it’s what happens after that matters. On Tuesday, the leaders of the American intelligence community testified to Congress that Russia has already set its sights on this November’s midterm elections. “We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokesmen, and other means of influence to try to build on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States,” said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. “There should be no doubt that Russia perceived its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.” And why wouldn’t they? Just think what they accomplished in 2016. For a laughably small investment — a few hundred thousand dollars here and there on social media ads, employing some (probably low-paid) hackers — not only did they help President Trump get elected, but they achieved what is surely Putin’s more fundamental goal: undermining American democracy.

Moldova bans Russian news broadcasts (Megan Reiss, Lawfare)
In an attempt to curb Russian propaganda efforts, the pro-European Union government of Moldova has begun implementing a law banning television channels from broadcasting news from Russian news stations. The law, originally passed on Jan. 10, gave media companies 30 days to come into compliance. Moldovan television stations will be subject to random checks and will face fines for violations.

Kaspersky Lab challenging Congress’ ban on its products (Eric White, Federal News Radio)
A federal contractor facing a governmentwide ban is taking its case to court. Kaspersky Lab filed a second lawsuit in district court this time to overturn a congressionally-mandated ban of its software and services. Kaspersky already filed suit in December against the Department of Homeland Security’s policy directive from last fall that required agencies to remove the company’s products from federal networks. Kaspersky Lab has now said the provision in the 2018 Defense Authorization bill banning it from federal networks is unconstitutional. The company asked the court to stop the implementation of ban, which is expected to start in October.