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At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday, White House’s Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel testified that his proposals to counter Russian meddling were put on the “back burner” when he served under former United States President Barack Obama.
Critics allege the Obama administration failed to do what it could with available intelligence to protect the US from Russian cyber attacks and information warfare in 2016.
“We were caught flat-footed at the outset and our collective response was inadequate to meet Russia’s escalation,” said ranking Democrat Mark Warner.
Another witness, who served as assistant secretary of state for Europe during the Obama administration, Victoria Nuland, said that the “hacking of the Democratic National Committee had all the hallmarks to be exactly the Russian operation.”
According to her, the majority of proposals relating to deterring Russian cyber attacks were rejected or postponed.
“I believe there were deterrence measures we could have taken and should have taken,” Nuland said.
Former Obama administration officials had worried that a vigorous American cyber response along the lines Daniel had proposed would have resulted in a full-scale cyber war with Russia. In September 2016, Russians accelerated their social media campaign using phony Facebook ads and Twitter bots.
“In October 2016, we saw an increase in what they were doing in social media. They shifted their focus,” Daniel said.
Nuland also agreed that Russian diplomats were traveling around the country in areas they were not meant to be under diplomatic protocols, apparently collecting intelligence.
The hearing did not touch upon steps current President Donald Trump’s administration has taken – or failed to take – to respond to the Russian election attack. Both witnesses said that there is a new urgency to finding ways to counter Russian cyberattacks.
