Essential Guide to Russian Hacking and Malicious Cyber Activity in the 2016 Presidential Election, Intelligence Agency Reports, Role of Putin, Russia Political Warfare Against America and the West

Essential Guide to Russian Hacking and Malicious Cyber Activity in the 2016 Presidential Election, Intelligence Agency Reports, Role of Putin, Russia Political Warfare Against America and the West
Author: U. S. Military
Publisher:
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2017-01-08
Genre:
ISBN: 9781520340395

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This is a comprehensive compilation of breaking government reports and congressional testimony regarding the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, FBI, and NSA, that Russia and Vladimir Putin engaged in cyber attacks and propaganda to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The January 2017 report, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, states: We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments. We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.This compilation also includes an informative study, Russian Political Warfare: Origin, Evolution, and Application - Comprehensive Study of Putin's Hybrid Warfare Campaigns Against United States and the West, Crimean Annexation, Ukraine, Gerasimov Model:Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and subsequent activities in Eastern Ukraine are not isolated incidents, but rather a new form of hybrid war, or asymmetric warfare. They are part of a decades-long and continent-spanning Russian political warfare (PW) campaign. Analysis of the origin, history, and evolution of Soviet/Russian PW from 1917 through today reveals that Russia is using PW to assert regional dominance and challenge the unipolarity of the United States and the West. A review of events in Ukraine demonstrates Russia is using its latest evolution of PW doctrine, the Gerasimov Model, to achieve strategic objectives while remaining below the military response threshold of the international community. This paper combines an empirical and case study review of PW, with lessons from the Cold War, to propose a conceptual framework and a supporting model for foreign policy makers, planners, and practitioners to better understand PW. Furthermore, it recommends the United States adopt a proactive PW strategy to support national policy objectives and counter the PW activities of Russia and other rising powers. United States Special Operations Forces are well-suited for PW and will play a pivotal role in a U.S. PW strategy that encompasses all elements of national power and synchronizes the interagency community.Russia's PW affects U.S. national interests in three ways: it threatens the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it destabilizes the global security status quo, and demonstrates that constitutional democracies are vulnerable to PW strategies. NATO's members are guaranteed collective defense against armed aggression, but NATO members in Eastern Europe fear that Russia's current tactics can undermine their sovereignty and redraw their borders without triggering an armed NATO response. As the quintessential status-quo power, U.S. interests are at stake in maintaining the balance of power within, and respect for, the current international system of laws, regulations, and traditions.Russia is demonstrating the effectiveness of using PW strategies to target constitutional democracies. If this trend is not reversed, then it will be repeated in other situations by different actors. America must successfully oppose Russian PW to prevent it from becoming the strategy of choice for emerging regional or global powers opposed to U.S. interests.

Russian Cyber Attack - Grizzly Steppe Report & The Rules of Cyber Warfare

Russian Cyber Attack - Grizzly Steppe Report & The Rules of Cyber Warfare
Author: U.S. Department of Defense
Publisher: e-artnow
Total Pages: 77
Release: 2017-03-17
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 8026875532

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Cyber attacks are a real threat to our country. This report presents the opposed views of USA and Russia on cyber security and gives insight into the activities of the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. The Grizzly Steppe Report provides details regarding the tools and hacking techniques used by the Russian hackers in order to interfere the 2016 U.S. elections. This activity by RIS is just part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This report provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government. The edition also provides crucial information on the legality of hostile cyber activity at state level. While the United States and its allies are in general agreement on the legal status of conflict in cyberspace, China, Russia, and a number of like-minded nations have an entirely different concept of the applicability of international law to cyberspace.

Warfare by Another Name: Russian Computer Hacking against the United States and the West

Warfare by Another Name: Russian Computer Hacking against the United States and the West
Author: Jack Caravelli
Publisher: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2017-02-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 603820623X

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Russia has developed one of the world’s most extensive cyberwarfare capabilities and views those capabilities as a means to advance its strategic objectives in both war and peacetime. This paper examines Russia’s approach to the use of its cyber capabilities and how they are integrated into Russia’s broader objectives for dealing with its adversaries. Particular focus is placed on Russia’s unprecedented use of cyber to influence political elections in the West, including in the United States, France, and Germany. To further its objectives, Russia also has used relations with outsiders such as at WikiLeaks to disseminate information considered damaging to Russian foes such as the US political campaign of Hillary Clinton. The paper concludes that there are very limited means to either deter or hold accountable Russian uses of cyber, implying Russian cyber attacks will continue and could easily expand to Middle East nations.

Russian Roulette

Russian Roulette
Author: Michael Isikoff
Publisher: Twelve
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2018-03-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1538728745

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The incredible, harrowing account of how American democracy was hacked by Moscow as part of a covert operation to influence the U.S. election and help Donald Trump gain the presidency. "Russian Roulette is...the most thorough and riveting account." -- The New York Times Russian Roulette is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry. After U.S.-Russia relations soured, as Vladimir Putin moved to reassert Russian strength on the global stage, Moscow trained its best hackers and trolls on U.S. political targets and exploited WikiLeaks to disseminate information that could affect the 2016 election. The Russians were wildly successful and the great break-in of 2016 was no "third-rate burglary." It was far more sophisticated and sinister -- a brazen act of political espionage designed to interfere with American democracy. At the end of the day, Trump, the candidate who pursued business deals in Russia, won. And millions of Americans were left wondering, what the hell happened? This story of high-tech spying and multiple political feuds is told against the backdrop of Trump's strange relationship with Putin and the curious ties between members of his inner circle -- including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn -- and Russia. Russian Roulette chronicles and explores this bizarre scandal, explains the stakes, and answers one of the biggest questions in American politics: How and why did a foreign government infiltrate the country's political process and gain influence in Washington?

The Plot to Hack America

The Plot to Hack America
Author: Malcolm Nance
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2016-09-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1510723331

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“The Plot to Hack America reads like a spy thriller, but it’s all too real.” –US Daily Review Over 600 Amazon *FIVE STAR* Reviews! “Nance states that, by their choices, actions, and statements, ‘Trump and Pence chose Russia’s values over America’s.’” –Michael Lipkin, New York Journal of Books Published a full month prior to the divisive Trump vs. Clinton 2016 presidential election, this book exposed the Russian hacking while the CIA was drafting their own report. In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the nation’s top computer security experts discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails. Soon after, the remainder of the Democratic Party machine, the congressional campaign, the Clinton campaign, and their friends and allies in the media were also hacked. Credit cards numbers, phone numbers, and contacts were stolen. In short order, the FBI found that more than twenty-five state election offices had their voter registration systems probed or attacked by the same hackers. Western intelligence agencies tracked the hack to Russian spy agencies and dubbed them the “Cyber Bears.” The media was soon flooded with the stolen information channeled through Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. It was a massive attack on America but the Russian hacks appeared to have a singular goal—elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States. New York Times bestselling author of Defeating ISIS, Airey Neave Memorial Book Prize finalist for Hacking ISIS, career intelligence officer, and MSNBC terrorism expert correspondent Malcolm Nance’s fast paced real-life spy thriller takes you from Vladimir Putin’s rise through the KGB from junior officer to spymaster-in-chief and spells out the story of how he performed the ultimate political manipulation—convincing Donald Trump to abandon seventy years of American foreign policy including the destruction of NATO, cheering the end of the European Union, allowing Russian domination of Eastern Europe, and destroying the existing global order with America at its lead. The Plot to Hack America is the thrilling true story of how Putin’s spy agency, run by the Russian billionaire class, used the promise of power and influence to cultivate Trump as well as his closest aides, the Kremlin Crew, to become unwitting assets of the Russian government. The goal? To put an end to 240 years of free and fair American democratic elections.

U.S. Intelligence Agencies on Russian Malicious Cyber Activity

U.S. Intelligence Agencies on Russian Malicious Cyber Activity
Author: Intelligence Community Assessment
Publisher: Cosimo Reports
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2019-03-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9781945934049

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As the election results of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections still reverberate in the U.S. and throughout the world, the discussion on how Donald Trump won and whether Russian influence helped his win continues. Leaked conspiracy theories which would have fitted well in a John le Carré spy novel seem corroborated by U.S. intelligence reports. In this volume, you find declassified versions of two reports by the U.S. intelligence agencies released at the end of 2016 and at the beginning of 2017. The first report, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections, describes Russia's activities in the media, social media, and cyberspace during the latest and previous U.S. elections. In this report, the U.S. Intelligence Community confirms "...Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order...." Also, they state that this campaign had a clear preference for Donald Trump to win. This report concludes ominously that Moscow will apply lessons from this campaign to influence other elections worldwide. The second report, GRIZZLY STEPPE- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity, shows how two groups, part of the Russian Intelligence Services, hacked into an-unnamed-U.S. political party. Furthermore, it offers technical advice and suggestions to organizations on how they could protect themselves against cyberattacks. Although it might take some time before we really understand the impact on the 2016 elections, these two brief reports are fascinating reading for political observers, journalists, and readers concerned about what really happened in 2016.

The Plot to Destroy Democracy

The Plot to Destroy Democracy
Author: Malcolm W. Nance
Publisher:
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2018
Genre: Elections
ISBN: 9780316484824

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A provocative, comprehensive analysis of Putin and the Russian Federation's master plan to destroy democracy. Includes a foreword by Rob Reiner. In the greatest intelligence operation in the history of the world, Donald Trump was made President of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power. For the first time, The Plot to Destroy Democracy reveals the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 U.S. election-and attempted to bring about the fall of NATO, the European Union and western democracy. It will show how Russia and its fifth column allies tried to flip the cornerstones of democracy in order to reengineer the world political order that kept most of the world free since since 1945. Career U.S. Intelligence officer Malcolm Nance will examine how Russia has used cyberwarfare, political propaganda and manipulating our perception of reality-and will use it again-to weaponize American news, traditional media, social media, and the workings of the internet to attack and break apart democratic institutions from within and what we can expect to come should we fail to stop their next attack. In his 35-year career in intelligence, Nance specialized in cryptology, national security policy, counter-terrorism intelligence. He has utilized top secret Russian-sourced political and hybrid warfare strategy documents to demonstrate the master plan to undermine American institutions that has been in effect from the Cold War to the present day. Based on original research and countless interviews with espionage experts, Nance examines how Putin's recent hacking accomplished a crucial first step for destabilizing the West for Russia, why Putin is just the man to do it. Nance has been called to testify before Congress and advise House and Senate Intelligence Committee members on the details of the election meddling. In this book, he exposes how Russia has supported the campaigns of right-wing extremists throughout both the U.S. and Europe to leverage an axis of autocracy, and how Putin's agencies have worked since 2010 to bring fringe candidate Donald Trump into elections. Revelatory, insightful, and shocking, The Plot To Destroy Democracy puts a professional spy lens on Putin's plot and unravels it play-by-play. In the end, he provides a better understanding of why Putin's efforts are a serious threat to our national security and global alliances-in much more than one election-and a blistering indictment of Putin's puppet, President Donald J. Trump.

The Black Ledger

The Black Ledger
Author: Robert Waldeck
Publisher:
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2020-10-29
Genre:
ISBN: 9780578792880

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The Black Ledger chronicles the efforts of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to bring the politics of disinformation from Ukraine and Russia to America in the 2016 election, while also revealing the full story behind four years of political warfare as Americans prepare to vote again in 2020. This is the first book to offer a coherent narrative of the Russian interference campaign in 2016 and its Ukrainian sequel. It fully illuminates these events, and explains what motivated the key players-Paul Manafort, Putin, Trump and the Ukrainian figures pulled into American politics. From the Russian interference campaign to the Republicans' defense of the four Russia investigations to Trump's use of disinformation that led to his 2019 impeachment, The Black Ledger incorporates the most current information-such as the recent release of Volume 5 of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Report. The book presents the never-before understood secrets of the saga of Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin. In Ukraine, nothing is ever as it seems. In his meticulously researched investigation, Rob Waldeck examines the murky intersection where the Trump presidency collides with the world of Ukrainian-Russian political intrigue and corruption. Waldeck brings to light much of the backstory that contributed to the impeachment of Donald Trump. As this timely book suggests, that episode may be only the tip of the iceberg.-Linda Feldmann, White House Bureau Chief, Christian Science Monitor"Will be an absolute must-read for future historians, and for plenty of others who are still trying to figure out what the heck happened during impeachment, and how it all connected together."-Casey Michel, Journalist, author of the forthcoming AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY

Russian Cyber Operations

Russian Cyber Operations
Author: Scott Jasper
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2022-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1647123348

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Russia has deployed cyber operations to interfere in foreign elections, launch disinformation campaigns, and cripple neighboring states—all while maintaining a thin veneer of deniability and avoiding strikes that cross the line into acts of war. How should a targeted nation respond? In Russian Cyber Operations, Scott Jasper dives into the legal and technical maneuvers of Russian cyber strategies, proposing that nations develop solutions for resilience to withstand future attacks. Jasper examines the place of cyber operations within Russia’s asymmetric arsenal and its use of hybrid and information warfare, considering examples from French and US presidential elections and the 2017 NotPetya mock ransomware attack, among others. A new preface to the paperback edition puts events since 2020 into context. Jasper shows that the international effort to counter these operations through sanctions and indictments has done little to alter Moscow’s behavior. Jasper instead proposes that nations use data correlation technologies in an integrated security platform to establish a more resilient defense. Russian Cyber Operations provides a critical framework for determining whether Russian cyber campaigns and incidents rise to the level of armed conflict or operate at a lower level as a component of competition. Jasper’s work offers the national security community a robust plan of action critical to effectively mounting a durable defense against Russian cyber campaigns.

Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent Us Elections

Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent Us Elections
Author: Intelligence Assessment
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2017-01-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781542410663

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This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies. It covers the motivation and scope of Moscow's intentions regarding US elections and Moscow's use of cyber tools and media campaigns to influence US public opinion. The assessment focuses on activities aimed at the 2016 US presidential election and draws on our understanding of previous Russian influence operations. When we use the term "we" it refers to an assessment by all three agencies.This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment. This document's conclusions are identical to the highly classified assessment, but this document does not include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence on key elements of the influence campaign.