Only days after the release of a detailed document urging President-elect Donald Trump to take a harsher stance on future cybercrime, President Obama ordered an extensive review on the security breaches suffered during the 2016 election, according to White House homeland security advisor, Lisa Monaco.
The report will be the work of the same U. S. Intelligence agencies that investigated the numerous hacking and leaks related to last month’s electoral process, most of them attributed directly to the Russian Federation government.
Monaco broke the news at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast event today, stating that Congress would get to review the final document and that President Obama would have it on his desk before the end of his term on January 20, 2017.
The report will highlight phishing scandals and other crimes allegedly sanctioned by Putin
On October 7, the White House officially pointed its finger towards Russian authorities after suffering a short wave of hackings, including that of the Democratic National Convention, denounced by its representative Hillary Clinton.
Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence conducted an investigation on the matter, following claims by Hillary Clinton that Russia had been responsible.
The leaked material from the DNC later appeared on WikiLeaks, spawning a large public scandal for the Democratic Party. At the time of the accusation, Russia referred to charges against them as ‘nonsense.’
The current report is Obama’s response to pressure from Congressional Democrats eager for a culprit since Donald Trump became the President-elect of the United States. Unlike Clinton, who believes the Russian government is America’s most imminent foreign threat, Trump has been extremely friendly towards Putin, naming China instead as a likely offshore enemy.
President Obama will decide which parts of the final report to share with the general public
Monaco pointed out that Obama would have the final word as to who would see the information gathered in that document. The report will focus as well on Trump’s dismissal of the latest findings on the DNC hacking, purported by 17 Intelligence outfits led by the DHS and the Office of the DNI.
“We may be crossing a new threshold, and it’s incumbent upon us to take stock of that,” she stated, later clarifying that her administration would be “very attentive to not disclosing sources and methods that may impede our ability to identify and attribute malicious actors in the future.”
As of today, there is substantial evidence pointing out to unlawful interference from the Russian Government in the networks of the DNC, including the internal analysis by cyber security firm CrowdStrike, who found two possible perpetrators, codenamed Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, both known to hail from Russia.
Source: Los Angeles Times
