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Top Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election

86 points by jbegley 9y ago

empath75 9y ago
tl;dr; Russian hackers actually attacked voting systems, and were successful at stealing credentials at the very least. It's uncertain if they were able to actually hack voting machines or the count.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  Almost certainly, whatever they did this election, they'll try to do more the next one.
- superioritycplx 9y ago
  tl;dr; Any system that's online is potentially under attack 24/7.
- zigzigzag 9y ago
  Isn't it "people an NSA analyst believes are Russian hackers"? I read the Intercept story but didn't see where it showed convincing evidence of that. It just says they showed no doubt.
Cookingboy 9y ago
At what point would nation-state sponsored hacking be considered as an act of war? From this article it doesn't seem like the hacking effort had significant result, but if, let's say if, Donald Trump was elected due to direct hacking attempt by Russian military intelligence, then what is the correct course of action?
- korzun 9y ago
  The correct course of action would result in a complete restructuring of NSA. The idiotic course of action would be waging a nuclear war with Russia.
  - akhilcacharya 9y ago
    > another country attacks us and an agency documents it > dismantles agency so that they can do it again ????
    - korzun 9y ago
      Somebody signed off on electronic voting; someone signed off on all the procedures and safeguards years ago. Etc. A hacking incident of this magnitude would indicate a complete national security failure on every single level. You can't trust that level of incompetence.
      - kem 9y ago
        But this isn't about the NSA, it's about state-level secretaries of state offices.
      - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        You think it was the NSA who signed off on electronic voting? I think it was the state election boards, and maybe the Federal Election Commission. Anyway, the NSA is not the party that messed up to allow flawed electronic voting. They're the party that can (and often has) detected Russian attempts to mess with stuff. So, once again, how does cutting the NSA help?
        Teever 9y ago
        Why can the NSA influence the decision making process at NIST but they can't influence the design and implementation of a safe and verifiable voting system if it's going to be electronic? Like this really is one of those "What would you say ya do, here?" moments because it sure as hell doesn't look like the NSA does anything preventative that is effective.
        anigbrowl 9y ago
        Government isn't a corporation that can be managed autocratically. Voting systems, norms, and technologies are highly politicized and contentious, and there's the federal government, numerous quasi-autonomous agencies, 50 state governments, and 20000 counties, not to mention 2 political parties and numerous regional factions. It seems like a single technical problem to you, but socially it's incredibly complex.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  It's interesting to compare American and Russian strategic military doctrine on the conduct of war in general. American strategic doctrine tends towards bright-line thresholds, past which a declaration of war is triggered. Russian strategic documents consider battlespace preparation the first and necessary phase of conflict and is less concerned with specific thresholds. Draw your own conclusions.
JPLeRouzic 9y ago
There are simple enough statistical tests that could provide hints (or not) of tampering activities: risk limited audits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk-limiting_audit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk-limiting_audit
- npiazza83 9y ago
  You know, I've been a huge proponent for a long time that this should be an integral component to institute in tandem with online voting. With as much focus as you find in politics on polling, data driven results, and analytics I can't help but believe that when politicians say, "America isn't ready for online voting" and hold up failed efforts at perfect security what they really mean is, "I don't know if the demographic shift that will result will benefit incumbents."
- mjw1007 9y ago
  That page describes ways to manually recount votes that were cast. But the article suggests that the tampering might have been in the voter registration databases, so that people would wrongly be refused the opportunity to cast a vote.
akhilcacharya 9y ago
Whether the Russians were successful in vote tampering is irrelevant (and admittedly unlikely). What is relevant is how long we will accept brazen cyberattacks against American targets in order to leak data and hurt a particular candidate who promised to be tough against Russia. Would we have the same reaction if the intelligence community blamed IS hackers or the SEA?
- kem 9y ago
  That's similar to my take here. Whether or not Trump actively colluded with Russia to affect election results, he's still behaving abnormally about the issue. I mean, if you step back and look at this, and just give Trump the benefit of the doubt and allow that maybe he was ignorant about Russia's attacks on the US elections, is his response reasonable for a president? He should be vigorously defending the US, and aggressively trying to get to the bottom of it. Instead, he's actively obstructing the investigation and thwarting US defenses. In short, he's doing the opposite of what he should be doing as president. He's acting like a damn mole using the office to further his own interests and those of his business associates, including Russia. At worst Trump is a traitor, and at best he's grossly derelict of duty. How this is not front and center of US political discussion on all sides, including the GOP, befuddles me. This also seems critical to interpreting Trump's voter fraud commission, as the Russia efforts were focused on voter registration. I predict Trump will somehow spin what was being reported on in this article into something having to do with voter fraud. That is, "let's not talk about Russian hacking of voter registration records, as that's just speculation. We agree, though, that there are anomalies in the voter registration records, and given that we all agree on that, it's time for voter ID laws."
  - ouid 9y ago
    If the president is derelict of duty, then he's a traitor.
    - AckSyn 9y ago
      The constitution clearly outlines what it means to be a traitor. Trotting out suppositions based on personal preference is analogous to mob justice.
sigmaprimus 9y ago
As a Canadian I find it disturbing that foreign governments engage in these types of actions to affect the outcomes of elections but do find it a bit hypocritical that the US is getting so upset about it, when IMHO the US three letter agencies have been involved in regime change and political tampering for decades. It kind of seems like yall got of taste of your own medicine.
- x2398dh1 9y ago
  Hey...that's not exactly true - we did not physically change the voting information in the machines - that would be totally unethical. We just had the right people killed, and allowed the right people who were doing the killing to grow extremely wealthy until they were no longer of use to us. Nicaragua, Chile, Panama, etc's elections were always left up to the citizens of those respective countries.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    This comment is propaganda specifically because it ignores all the propaganda that was necessary to pull those operations off. The TLA's had to convince a good chunk of people that the replacement leader was who they wanted so they wouldn't just re-replace the leader with more bullets. Propaganda was also the dominant technique for the recent election. Stays the best tool with it honed to near perfection by the likes of Fox.
    - wfo 9y ago
      I think the post you're replying to was tongue in cheek and not propaganda i.e. "we technically didn't change vote totals, we just assassinated democratically elected leaders and installed brutal puppet dictatorship regimes in their place [which is obviously far, far worse]".
      - nickpsecurity 9y ago
        As was mine. ;)
mzs 9y ago
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-contractor-reality-winner-arrested-for-sending-classified-nsa-intelligence-to-news-outlet/article/2625014 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-contractor-reality...
x2398dh1 9y ago
"...a Florida-based vendor of electronic voting services and equipment." I would have thought we would have learned 17 years ago that Florida really should just not be making voting equipment.
Mikeb85 9y ago
And this is how democracy ends... If all it takes to enforce one-party rule is to claim the other party was aided by a foreign power, then the 3 letter agencies can, in effect, choose who rules.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  Or similarly when one party is so encompassed in party loyalty that they look past the insane amount of smoke emulating for the home and insist everyone else is crazy because they heading there to look for a fire.
- ViViDboarder 9y ago
  Not exactly. It's cause for concern, not wholesale reason to discard three results of our election. I don't think anyone is claiming that either. If there is suspicion that there has been influence from another nation, it should not be ignored. That would also be an end to democracy. Our nation should attempt to reach the truth, and that truth (barring collusion) should not invalidate a vote.
  - Mikeb85 9y ago
    If your systems aren't strong enough to withstand another nation's influence, that's on you. The US influences elections around the world, and vice versa. I see nothing wrong with Putin influencing US elections, god knows the US does the same in Russia. Alex Navalny et al would be nothing without US support...

86 points by jbegley 9y ago

tl;dr; Russian hackers actually attacked voting systems, and were successful at stealing credentials at the very least. It's uncertain if they were able to actually hack voting machines or the count.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
Almost certainly, whatever they did this election, they'll try to do more the next one.
superioritycplx 9y ago
tl;dr; Any system that's online is potentially under attack 24/7.
zigzigzag 9y ago
Isn't it "people an NSA analyst believes are Russian hackers"? I read the Intercept story but didn't see where it showed convincing evidence of that. It just says they showed no doubt.

Cookingboy 9y ago

At what point would nation-state sponsored hacking be considered as an act of war? From this article it doesn't seem like the hacking effort had significant result, but if, let's say if, Donald Trump was elected due to direct hacking attempt by Russian military intelligence, then what is the correct course of action?

korzun 9y ago
The correct course of action would result in a complete restructuring of NSA. The idiotic course of action would be waging a nuclear war with Russia.
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  > another country attacks us and an agency documents it > dismantles agency so that they can do it again ????
  - korzun 9y ago
    Somebody signed off on electronic voting; someone signed off on all the procedures and safeguards years ago. Etc. A hacking incident of this magnitude would indicate a complete national security failure on every single level. You can't trust that level of incompetence.
    - kem 9y ago
      But this isn't about the NSA, it's about state-level secretaries of state offices.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      You think it was the NSA who signed off on electronic voting? I think it was the state election boards, and maybe the Federal Election Commission. Anyway, the NSA is not the party that messed up to allow flawed electronic voting. They're the party that can (and often has) detected Russian attempts to mess with stuff. So, once again, how does cutting the NSA help?
      - Teever 9y ago
        Why can the NSA influence the decision making process at NIST but they can't influence the design and implementation of a safe and verifiable voting system if it's going to be electronic? Like this really is one of those "What would you say ya do, here?" moments because it sure as hell doesn't look like the NSA does anything preventative that is effective.
        anigbrowl 9y ago
        Government isn't a corporation that can be managed autocratically. Voting systems, norms, and technologies are highly politicized and contentious, and there's the federal government, numerous quasi-autonomous agencies, 50 state governments, and 20000 counties, not to mention 2 political parties and numerous regional factions. It seems like a single technical problem to you, but socially it's incredibly complex.
anigbrowl 9y ago
It's interesting to compare American and Russian strategic military doctrine on the conduct of war in general. American strategic doctrine tends towards bright-line thresholds, past which a declaration of war is triggered. Russian strategic documents consider battlespace preparation the first and necessary phase of conflict and is less concerned with specific thresholds. Draw your own conclusions.

JPLeRouzic 9y ago

There are simple enough statistical tests that could provide hints (or not) of tampering activities: risk limited audits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk-limiting_audit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk-limiting_audit

npiazza83 9y ago
You know, I've been a huge proponent for a long time that this should be an integral component to institute in tandem with online voting. With as much focus as you find in politics on polling, data driven results, and analytics I can't help but believe that when politicians say, "America isn't ready for online voting" and hold up failed efforts at perfect security what they really mean is, "I don't know if the demographic shift that will result will benefit incumbents."
mjw1007 9y ago
That page describes ways to manually recount votes that were cast. But the article suggests that the tampering might have been in the voter registration databases, so that people would wrongly be refused the opportunity to cast a vote.

akhilcacharya 9y ago

Whether the Russians were successful in vote tampering is irrelevant (and admittedly unlikely). What is relevant is how long we will accept brazen cyberattacks against American targets in order to leak data and hurt a particular candidate who promised to be tough against Russia. Would we have the same reaction if the intelligence community blamed IS hackers or the SEA?

kem 9y ago
That's similar to my take here. Whether or not Trump actively colluded with Russia to affect election results, he's still behaving abnormally about the issue. I mean, if you step back and look at this, and just give Trump the benefit of the doubt and allow that maybe he was ignorant about Russia's attacks on the US elections, is his response reasonable for a president? He should be vigorously defending the US, and aggressively trying to get to the bottom of it. Instead, he's actively obstructing the investigation and thwarting US defenses. In short, he's doing the opposite of what he should be doing as president. He's acting like a damn mole using the office to further his own interests and those of his business associates, including Russia. At worst Trump is a traitor, and at best he's grossly derelict of duty. How this is not front and center of US political discussion on all sides, including the GOP, befuddles me. This also seems critical to interpreting Trump's voter fraud commission, as the Russia efforts were focused on voter registration. I predict Trump will somehow spin what was being reported on in this article into something having to do with voter fraud. That is, "let's not talk about Russian hacking of voter registration records, as that's just speculation. We agree, though, that there are anomalies in the voter registration records, and given that we all agree on that, it's time for voter ID laws."
- ouid 9y ago
  If the president is derelict of duty, then he's a traitor.
  - AckSyn 9y ago
    The constitution clearly outlines what it means to be a traitor. Trotting out suppositions based on personal preference is analogous to mob justice.

sigmaprimus 9y ago

As a Canadian I find it disturbing that foreign governments engage in these types of actions to affect the outcomes of elections but do find it a bit hypocritical that the US is getting so upset about it, when IMHO the US three letter agencies have been involved in regime change and political tampering for decades. It kind of seems like yall got of taste of your own medicine.

x2398dh1 9y ago
Hey...that's not exactly true - we did not physically change the voting information in the machines - that would be totally unethical. We just had the right people killed, and allowed the right people who were doing the killing to grow extremely wealthy until they were no longer of use to us. Nicaragua, Chile, Panama, etc's elections were always left up to the citizens of those respective countries.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  This comment is propaganda specifically because it ignores all the propaganda that was necessary to pull those operations off. The TLA's had to convince a good chunk of people that the replacement leader was who they wanted so they wouldn't just re-replace the leader with more bullets. Propaganda was also the dominant technique for the recent election. Stays the best tool with it honed to near perfection by the likes of Fox.
  - wfo 9y ago
    I think the post you're replying to was tongue in cheek and not propaganda i.e. "we technically didn't change vote totals, we just assassinated democratically elected leaders and installed brutal puppet dictatorship regimes in their place [which is obviously far, far worse]".
    - nickpsecurity 9y ago
      As was mine. ;)

mzs 9y ago

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-contractor-reality-winner-arrested-for-sending-classified-nsa-intelligence-to-news-outlet/article/2625014 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-contractor-reality...

x2398dh1 9y ago

"...a Florida-based vendor of electronic voting services and equipment." I would have thought we would have learned 17 years ago that Florida really should just not be making voting equipment.

Mikeb85 9y ago

And this is how democracy ends... If all it takes to enforce one-party rule is to claim the other party was aided by a foreign power, then the 3 letter agencies can, in effect, choose who rules.

BoiledCabbage 9y ago
Or similarly when one party is so encompassed in party loyalty that they look past the insane amount of smoke emulating for the home and insist everyone else is crazy because they heading there to look for a fire.
ViViDboarder 9y ago
Not exactly. It's cause for concern, not wholesale reason to discard three results of our election. I don't think anyone is claiming that either. If there is suspicion that there has been influence from another nation, it should not be ignored. That would also be an end to democracy. Our nation should attempt to reach the truth, and that truth (barring collusion) should not invalidate a vote.
- Mikeb85 9y ago
  If your systems aren't strong enough to withstand another nation's influence, that's on you. The US influences elections around the world, and vice versa. I see nothing wrong with Putin influencing US elections, god knows the US does the same in Russia. Alex Navalny et al would be nothing without US support...