Intel officers: Moscow constructed U.S. influencer networks, hazard rising from Iran forward of vote

U.S. intelligence officials said they are seeing escalating efforts by hostile foreign nations to influence the upcoming elections, including Russian-built networks of American influencers and stepped-up Iranian cyber operations.   

Russia is the most active foreign threat to manipulate voters, the officials told reporters on Friday. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the Russian-controlled RT has assembled networks of U.S. and Western personalities to create and spread pro-Russian narratives.

The influencers, officials said, aim to boost former President Donald Trump’s bid for the White House and denigrate incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris. 

“These actors, among others, are supporting Moscow’s efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former president and diminish the prospects of the vice president,” an ODNI official said. 

ODNI officials refused to answer questions regarding whether they had spoken with Mr. Trump or anyone on his campaign about the foreign threats. The officials previously told reporters in July they “conducted outreach” to presidential candidates and would only say on Friday that they had subsequently “offered briefings” to campaigns.

Mr. Trump told the U.K.-based Daily Mail in August he was refusing intelligence briefings with U.S. officials because he suspected they would leak the content of the meetings and blame him. 

As evidence of Russia’s operations, the intelligence officials pointed to the Justice Department case announced days earlier that accused two employees of RT of covertly funding and publishing videos to advance Russia’s interests. Alongside RT, U.S. intelligence officials said organizations sanctioned by the American government, including the Social Design Agency and ANO Dialog, supported Moscow’s agenda. 

U.S. officials emphasized that they had seen no effort to interfere in the election itself, which they define as attempts to degrade or disrupt the ability to hold the vote. 

Iran is pursuing covert influence operations similar to Russia, with Tehran relying on fake social media personas in an effort to divide voters in the U.S., at a greater tempo than previously seen.

“The [intelligence community] assesses that Iran is making a greater effort than in the past to influence this year’s elections, even as its tactics and approaches are similar to prior cycles,” an ODNI official said. “Like Russia, Iran has a multi-pronged approach that looks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process.”

The U.S. intelligence community also published an election security update for September, noting that Iran has a “suite of tools at its disposal.” 

Tehran has already deployed some of the cyber tools in its arsenal, according to U.S. intelligence officials, such as a hack-and-leak operation that the American government said was directed against Mr. Trump’s campaign. 

While U.S. government officials sound the alarm about Iran’s cyber capabilities, Microsoft is not persuaded that Iran’s tools match the standard set by Moscow and Beijing. 

Microsoft Threat Analysis Center’s Clint Watts said his team is closely studying Russia, Iran and China’s cyber and influence operations and has spotted some glaring differences in how each adversary is deploying artificial intelligence as a weapon.  

Mr. Watts told attendees at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit that the Russians recognize “they need to use their own tools from the start rather than Western tools, because they’re afraid they’ll get knocked off those systems.”

China, however, knows it has the ability to insource needed tools but Iran cannot do the same, according to Mr. Watts. 

“A weakness of Iran in particular and why they’re further behind [is that] they’ve tried different tools, [but] they just can’t get access to most of them, for the most part,” Mr. Watts said. “So it’s kind of a dynamic between application and access, and I think a long-term trend just to look at is who has AI or can develop the tools on scale more quickly, and it’s the U.S. and China.”

U.S. intelligence officials told reporters on Friday that they have observed China pursuing a much different approach than Russia and Iran when it comes to influencing voters.

“China is also continuing its longstanding efforts to build relationships with U.S. officials and entities at state and local levels because it perceives Washington as largely opposed to China,” an ODNI official said. “This view likely informs Beijing’s greater interest in some non-presidential races.”

The U.S. officials’ assessment of China’s actions comes on the heels of the arrest of a former deputy chief of staff to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Democrat, for allegedly working as an influence agent of the Chinese Communist Party.

Before the November election arrives, U.S. officials say they are on guard for an increasing number of nations looking to influence the vote.

While keeping its ire focused on Russia, Iran, and China, the U.S. intelligence community is also beginning to get more vocal about other countries looking to meddle. 

“We are seeing a number of countries considering activities that, at a minimum, test the boundaries of election influence,” the intelligence community said in its election security update. “Such activities include lobbying political figures to try to curry favor with them in the event they are elected to office.”