WASHINGTON — A presidential candidate’s phone is hacked. Fake video falsely shows burned ballots in Pennsylvania. National security officials warn that American adversaries may incite violent protests after Election Day.
These developments, all revealed last week, show how Russia, China and Iran have increased the pace of their efforts to meddle in American politics ahead of next month’s elections, just as intelligence officials and security analysts had predicted.
At the same time, officials, technology companies and private investigators have taken a more aggressive defense by quickly exposing foreign election threats, highlighting lessons learned from past election cycles that revealed the United States’ vulnerability to disinformation and cyberespionage.
Officials say the U.S. election system is so secure that no foreign nation could alter the results on the scale necessary to change the outcome. However, authoritarian adversaries have leveraged disinformation and cyber espionage to attack campaigns and voters, while stoking distrust and discord.
Here’s what you need to know as the presidential election approaches:
Russia is the main threat
Russia is the most active and sophisticated nation working to manipulate US elections, using fake websites, state-controlled media, and unwitting Americans to spread misleading and polarizing content aimed at undermining confidence in the election.
The Kremlin’s disinformation apparatus takes advantage of controversial topics such as immigration, crime, the economy or disaster relief. The goal is to weaken the United States, erode support for Ukraine as it fights Russian invaders and reduce the United States’ ability to counter Russia’s growing ties with China, North Korea and Iran, officials said.
Intelligence officials and private security analysts have determined that Russia supports former President Donald Trump and is using disinformation (sometimes generated by artificial intelligence) to smear his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested cutting funding to Ukraine and repeatedly criticized the NATO military alliance.
In a particularly bold campaign, Russia submitted a video falsely accusing Harris of paralyzing a woman in a car accident years ago. Another video made fictitious accusations against Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
On Friday, the FBI confirmed Moscow’s role in creating a third video purportedly showing the destruction of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. Local election officials quickly debunked the video as fake.
Russia has also sought to pay American influencers who spread the Kremlin’s preferred narratives. Last month, U.S. authorities charged two Russian state media employees with funneling $10 million to a Tennessee company to create pro-Russian content. The company then paid several popular right-wing influencers, who said they had no idea Russia supported their work.
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Moscow’s campaign will not end on election day. Instead, intelligence officials and private security analysts predict that Russia will exploit allegations of election irregularities to suggest that the results cannot be trusted. A recently declassified intelligence memo said Russia could also encourage violent protests after the election.
“Putin’s goal is to foment chaos, division and polarization in our society,” said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who now teaches at Stanford University.
Russia has rejected claims that it seeks to influence the US election. A message left at the Russian embassy in Washington was not immediately returned Saturday.
Iranian hacking and leak operations
Iran has been a particularly brazen player in foreign interference this year.
He is accused of hacking into Trump campaign associates and providing stolen communications to media organizations and Democrats in hopes that damaging stories would emerge that could harm the Republican’s prospects. Dirt-filled emails were sent to people associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign, but there is no indication anyone responded, officials said.
Last month, the Justice Department indicted three Iranian hackers who remain at large, accusing them of a years-long operation targeting a wide range of victims.
U.S. officials have described the hack as part of a broader effort to interfere in an election that Iran perceives as particularly consequential. Iran, they say, has made clear its opposition to Trump’s campaign. His administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that led Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.
In addition to cyber operations, US officials have repeatedly expressed concern about the possibility of Iran carrying out violence on US soil against Trump or other members of his administration.
In 2022, officials charged over a foiled Iranian plot to kill Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, and this year they charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a plot to carry out political assassinations in the United States. , potentially including Trump’s.
Tehran’s leaders could also try to encourage violent protests after the election, according to the declassified intelligence memo. Authorities say Iran also covertly financed and supported protests in the United States over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Iranian authorities have dismissed accusations that the country is trying to influence the election. Iran’s mission to the United Nations issued a statement this week saying: “Iran has no motive or intention to interfere in the US elections.”
A neutral China?
U.S. intelligence officials believe China is taking a more neutral stance in the election and focusing on down-ballot races, targeting candidates from both parties based on their positions on issues of key importance to Beijing, including support for Taiwan.
But the Chinese government has for years carried out a sophisticated hacking operation targeting all forms of Western life and industry that goes far beyond electoral influence.
“From the city council to the president, they want access,” said Adam Darrah, a former CIA political analyst and now vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm ZeroFox, which tracks foreign threats online.
On Friday, news broke that Chinese hackers, as part of a much broader espionage effort, had attacked cellphones used by Trump, his running mate JD Vance and people associated with the Harris campaign. It was not immediately clear what data, if any, had been accessed.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said they were not familiar with the details and could not comment, but said China is routinely the victim of cyberattacks and opposes the activity.
Are these new tactics? Hardly.
Foreign adversaries, including the very ones now blamed for the meddling, have tried to interfere in recent election cycles, with varying degrees of success.
But the U.S. government, accused of withholding information about the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election, has worked this year to aggressively denounce foreign threats as part of an effort to reduce their impact and assure Americans that elections are safe.
In 2016, Russian military intelligence officers hacked into the email accounts of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair and the Democratic Party and released tens of thousands of communications in an effort to boost Trump’s successful presidential campaign.
Russia also engaged in a massive but hidden social media trolling campaign that year aimed at sowing discord on hot-button social issues, creating division in the U.S. electoral process, and damaging Clinton’s bid for the presidency.
The antics continued into the 2020 election cycle, when a Ukrainian lawmaker described at the time by U.S. officials as an “active Russian agent” released audio recordings of Democrat Joe Biden, who was then running for president.
That same year, Iranian hackers were blamed for emails allegedly coming from the far-right group The Proud Boys that officials said were designed to damage Trump’s candidacy.
