U.S. intelligence officials declassified a memo this week saying China, Iran, Russia and potentially other cyberattackers have the ability to access America’s election systems.
The intelligence community does not want voters to worry, however, and the National Intelligence Council memo said the community does not think foreign hackers are likely to try to alter the final vote.
“We assess that some U.S. adversaries — at a minimum China, Iran, and Russia or Russian-affiliated actors — have the technical capability to access some U.S. election-related networks and systems,” the declassified memo said. “That said, we assess foreign actors will probably refrain from disruptive attacks that seek to alter vote counts because they almost certainly would not be able to tangibly impact the outcome of the federal election without detection; such activity would carry a risk of retaliation; and there is no indication they attempted such attacks during the past two election cycles.”
What if the foreign hackers’ approach changes in the final two weeks? U.S. intelligence agencies say they have a plan to stop the chaos involving additional warnings that expose the hackers’ plans.
America’s spy agencies favor a “multipronged approach” with warnings to adversaries, alerts to voters, and proactive communication with local officials and law enforcement, officials said.
