CNN
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Russia’s war in Ukraine has done little to curb its desire to interfere in the conflict. next elections in 2024 and sow discord in the United States, two of America’s top intelligence officials said Tuesday.
National Security Agency Director General Paul Nakasone, sitting alongside FBI Director Chris Wray at a conference in New York, told the audience that Russia still has the bandwidth, despite his exhaustion. two year war in Ukraineto interfere in the American presidential election.
“This is an important year for them,” said Nakasone, who is also commander of U.S. Cyber Command. “They look at this (the US election) and I imagine, given the challenge they have in Ukraine, that’s obviously where they want to make an impact.”
Wray agreed, adding: “If anything, one could argue that their focus on Ukraine has increased their desire to focus on how we (the United States) look and how we think about issues, because American politics matters deeply to them. totally unprovoked and scandalous invasion of Ukraine.
The “stars are aligning” for Russia in terms of its efforts to both succeed militarily in Ukraine and exert interference or influence. US operationsWray said.
Earlier Tuesday, a senior Justice Department cyber official claimed that the attention Russian security services have paid to Ukraine has benefited the United States.
“All of the (Russian) intelligence services that we investigate on a daily basis for their activities targeting the United States are now devoting time and attention to Ukraine for obvious reasons,” Sean Newell, who heads the cybersecurity section of the ministry.
But Russian intelligence continues to examine the impact it could have on U.S. government support for Ukraine, including military logistical support, Newell said.
The three men were speaking on a range of cybersecurity issues at the International Cybersecurity Conference at Fordham University.
Nakasone and Wray both expressed confidence in the ability to secure elections through “exponentially more sophisticated” cooperation between national security and cybersecurity agencies, as well as the private sector, but acknowledged that foreign adversaries were also improving.
“The threats are tougher, but the defense is better,” Wray said.
Wray and Nakasone named Russia, China and Iran as the main actors seeking to interfere in the U.S. election.
The director of the FBI estimated that The Chinese army of hackers is larger than that of all major countries combined and 50 times larger than what it has.
“If I took the FBI cyber staff and said forget ransomware, forget Russia, forget Iran, don’t do anything other than China, we would be outnumbered 50 to 1,” Wray said . “And that’s probably a conservative estimate.”
Nakasone acknowledged that the United States would never match China in terms of the number of hackers, but argued that the United States had a qualitative advantage.
Quantity “is not our advantage, our advantage is qualitative,” Nakasone said. “It’s the partnerships we have, it’s the information we receive from our incredible U.S. intelligence community, it’s the work we do with academia, it’s the workforce we have.” »
Last month, the Senate confirmed the next head of the NSA and Cyber Command, meaning Nakasone is expected to resign shortly after spending nearly six years helping the country through its most tumultuous period in to date in terms of defense against the cyber activities of foreign countries. opponents.
