US Intelligence Preparing For Cyber Attack Russia And Iran, What's Up?

Illustration (Unsplash / Jefferson Santos)

JAKARTA - United States (US) national security officials say Russian-sponsored hackers have targeted state and local governments. In the near future, at least two cases of data theft have occurred in the US. This was made a day after the top US intelligence official, John Ratcliffe, said that Russia and Iran obtained information on the voter list.

Citing CNN, Friday, October 23, the statement also shows the government has prepared a high security posture in the days leading up to the presidential election. Ratcliffe said that Iran and Russia had interfered in US election affairs because they had compromised voter list information. However, he did not specify what type of information was hacked.

Additionally, hackers based in Iran appear intent on influencing and disrupting the election, US officials said. The Treasury Department responded by issuing sanctions against five Iranian entities 'for trying to influence elections in the US' including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Meanwhile, Ratcliff held Iran responsible for fake emails that appeared to come from far-right groups. According to him, the hack was intended to lower Donald Trump's voice.

The US government considers that some of the data Iran gets comes from vendors and country systems, not just publicly available voter information. But Iran and Russia have denied meddling in the US elections.

Hacked form

The federal warning about the stolen data is published in two separate reports co-authored by the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The report provides more details on what Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray were referring to on Wednesday October 21.

None of the reports released by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency indicate that Russian or Iranian hackers compromised the US electoral system. But attacks in the past have put the public on their toes, officials said.

The hacks from Iran disguised themselves as legitimate media to spread anti-American propaganda intended to interfere with the elections, the report said. Iran is also suspected of using distributed denial of service attacks, database attacks and phishing to spread chaos.

Meanwhile, according to reports, Russian state-sponsored hackers, trying to penetrate "dozens" of aviation networks and state and local governments. "Starting October 1, 2020, (Russian hackers) extracted data from at least two victim servers," reads the warning.

Ratcliffe said at his press conference that the intelligence community warned the public about the actions Iran and Russia were taking to interfere in the elections. "We have seen Iran send fake emails designed to intimidate voters, spark social unrest and destabilize President Trump," he said.