Overnight Cybersecurity: Russia report fallout

Welcome to OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY, your daily rundown of the biggest news in the world of hacking and data privacy. We’re here to connect the dots as leaders in government, policy and industry try to counter the rise in cyber threats. What lies ahead for Congress, the administration and the latest company under siege? Whether you’re a consumer, a techie or a D.C. lifer, we’re here to give you …

 

THE BIG STORY:

–HACKING REPORT FALLOUT: Trump aide Kellyanne Conway predicted the Trump administration would consider rolling back some of the punishments against Russia levied by President Obama for a more “proportionate” response. She characterized Obama’s sanctions as over the top in an interview with USA Today

“A punitive one by President Obama in the instance of the alleged Russian hacking,” she said, “because he expelled 35 Russian operatives and when China hacked 21 million records of Americans … it was basically a little bit shrug-shouldered.”

Conway was referring to China’s hack of the Office of Personnel Management.

{mosads}

Many, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a hearing last week, have noted at least one key difference between Chinese and Russian hacking. The Chinese hacking fell within the conventional definitions of espionage. The United States conducts similar operations against other countries. In regards to the OPM hack, Clapper warned that “people in glass houses need to think about throwing rocks.”

Russia’s alleged hacking of Democratic party servers is different, critics say, because it leaked the data publicly with the intent to sway an election, way outside of traditional espionage norms.

–SUNDAY GAMEPLAN: Conway’s interview came one day after Donald Trump’s team used appearances on the Sunday-morning news shows to try to shift the public focus on the intelligence community’s report on Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential race. Instead of focusing on the crux of the report — that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a multifaceted campaign aimed at helping Trump take the White House — members of the president-elect’s team emphasized Russia’s failure to actually disrupt the country’s democracy and influence election results.

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

–SO, ARE WE GOING TO BE FRIENDS WITH RUSSIA?

• PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP (via a tweet): “Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We have enough problems around the world without yet another one.”
• HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN DEVIN NUNES (R-CALIF.): “We would like to be friends with the Russians. I just don’t know if it’s possible.”
• SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY.) (on Trump’s call for friendly ties with Russia): “My suspicion is these hopes will be dashed pretty quickly,“

–A NOTE FROM THE ECUADORIAN EMBASSY: WikiLeaks head Julian Assange slammed Friday’s intelligence report on Russian hacking, saying during a Monday morning press conference that it lacks any supporting evidence. “Most of this so-called intelligence report is not even fabricated. It does not make assertions that rise to the level of fabricated,” Assange said during the media event, streamed live via Periscope audio. WikiLeaks has long claimed that Russia did not provide it with emails published on its site. Assange claims that the hacker or hackers known as Guccifer 2.0 — who released DNC and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee emails to The Hill and other outlets – may have been Russian, but were not connected to WikiLeaks’ leaks. The report, however, claims Guccifer 2.0 and the WikiLeaks leaker are both Russian operations. “The evidentiary weight is literally zero,” insisted Assange, disputing those findings.

To read the rest of our report, click here.

–OBAMA DOESN’T THINK HE ‘UNDERESTIMATED’ PUTIN: President Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he doesn’t think he “underestimated” Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age, it is possible for misinformation for cyber hacking and so forth to have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating,” Obama said on ABC’s “This Week.” The president said he ordered a report on Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election to make sure people understand this is something Putin has been interfering in for “quite some time in Europe.”

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

–GOP REP CHIDES THE DNC OVER HACKING MESS: Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) is drawing ire for mocking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack in a social media post. On Facebook on Sunday, Blum shared a photo of the DNC headquarters on Capitol Hill amid below-freezing temperatures. “Walked to work past DNC HQ this afternoon. Nobody there – I guess they couldn’t ‘hack’ this cold weather!” Blum wrote. To read the rest of our piece, click here.

 

A POLICY UPDATE:

–SURPRISE! THIS SECTION WILL ALSO BE RUSSIAN HACKING RELATED: Senators are preparing to unveil legislation this week that would crack down on Russia amid allegations that Moscow meddled in the White House race.

Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.), the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, is leading the effort on a new sanctions bill to push back against Russia, in response to hacking, as well as the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

A Cardin staffer said Friday that the Maryland Democrat is working with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), as well as other colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to iron out the language of the bill and finalize a list of co-sponsors.

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

–AN INDEPENDENT PROBE? Democrats continue to express optimism that they will be able to recruit Republican support for legislation establishing an independent commission to study Russian interference in the election.

“The fact that it’s Democratic right now doesn’t mean that won’t change,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who cosponsors the bill in the Senate, told reporters Monday.

“We have not gotten a Republican [but] we have reached out,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who alongside Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) introduced the House version.

“But hopefully we will be able to get some to come on board.”

The bill, which would create a bipartisan commission modeled after the 9/11 Commission, has the support of the entire Democratic caucus in the House, lawmakers said Monday.

 

A LIGHTER CLICK:

–BOXING GLOVE LOOKS LIKE DONALD TRUMP. Unless you speak the foreign language this magazine title is in, it does not have to be a metaphor for anything in particular. Just take joy in a president-elect boxing glove.

 

WHO’S IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

–THE SHADOW BROKERS. The Shadow Brokers, the hacker or hackers who stole and are now claiming to sell National Security Agency surveillance software, are now selling the agency’s package of Windows hacking tools.

Like all Shadow Brokers wares, the tools are at least three years old. But codes used to pass through security hardware that the Shadow Brokers released in August worked when tested at that time, sparking concerns.

The new sale, announced Saturday, coincides as the group steps up a war of words directed at WikiLeaks.

The Brokers first announced the sale of tools from the vaunted NSA-affiliated Equation Group in August. Two days after they announced an auction for the complete set of tools, WikiLeaks tweeted that they, too, had copies of the tools, but would release a “pristine copy” for free.

WikiLeaks has thus far never released a copy of the tools.

“@wikileaks [re]member when you claimed you had stuff from #shadowbrokers, what happened to that?” the Shadow Brokers tweeted on Saturday.

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

 

REMEMBER THE 80s?

–THE ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY ACT, which dictates the conditions when law enforcement doesn’t need a warrant to take possession of electronic data, is widely believed to be something in need of reform. How widely? The bill, which covers communications on platforms like email or cloud storage sites, initially passed in 1986 – before the invention of the world wide web.

Under the law, police can subpoena data stored on a third party server for 180 days. Many providers, like Google and Microsoft, no longer comply with the law and require a court order.

Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) reintroduced a bill to update the law on Monday. Their bill would require a warrant for these files. During the last Congress, it passed the House 419-0.

 

CONFIRMATION HEARINGS:

TUESDAY:

–Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general, 9:30 a.m.

–Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly for secretary of Homeland Security, 3:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY

–Former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of State, 9 a.m.

–Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) for director of the CIA, 10 a.m.

THURSDAY

–Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis for Defense secretary, 9:30 a.m.

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Links from our blog, The Hill, and around the Web.

Russia says the intelligence report is “amateurishly emotional.” (CSO Online)

Op-ed: “Trump is way off on intelligence report.” (Council on Foreign Relations)

Hackers swipe info on 1.5 million gamer accounts. (Threatpost)

The UK is auditing its own protections against digital intrusion. (ZDnet).

Hackers targeted the defense fund of convicted Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht. (Motherboard)

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is pressing the Washington Metro on cybersecurity practices. (Warner).

 

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