Category Archives: Dan Coats

Mueller report confirms Trump lobbied top intel officials to refute Russia stories

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President Donald Trump pushed top intelligence officials to refute information tied to the investigations into links between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, according to information publicly released Thursday in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. According to the report, Trump phoned then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on March 26, 2017 to complain the investigation was “messing up” his ability to get things done with Russia, as far as Rogers recalls. The president also asked Rogers if there was anything he could do to refute news stories linking him to Russia. Richard Ledgett, former NSA deputy director who was reportedly present for the exchange, drafted a memo about the substance of the call. He and Rogers both signed it and locked it in a safe. Ledgett “said it was the most unusual thing he had experienced in 40 years of government service,” the report states. By the time the phone call […]

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Cyberthreats rise to the top at Senate hearing on worldwide dangers for U.S.

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In yet another sign that the hacking abilities of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are drawing intense scrutiny from U.S. spy agencies and law enforcement, top federal officials focused on cyberspace Tuesday as part of a broader hearing on the global threats facing the United States. The digital tools and techniques deployed by U.S. adversaries and competitors are “growing in potency and severity,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, we expect these actors and others to rely more and more on cyber capabilities” to advance their interests, Coats said. FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers that nation-states are increasingly collaborating with criminal hackers in a “form of outsourcing that makes it even more of a menace.” The annual hearing gives the public a snapshot of the threats at the forefront of U.S. intelligence chiefs’ minds, and hacking allegedly backed by […]

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Coats: ODNI has seen ‘no evidence’ of supply chain hack detailed in Bloomberg story

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Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told CyberScoop on Thursday that he’s seen no evidence of Chinese actors tampering with motherboards made by Super Micro Computer, becoming the latest national security official to question a Bloomberg report that stated the company was the victim of a supply chain hack. “We’ve seen no evidence of that, but we’re not taking anything for granted,” Coats told CyberScoop. “We’ve haven’t seen anything, but we’re always watching.” The comments came before a speech Coats delivered at CyberTalks, where the director touched on supply chain threats as one facet the administration is focused on when it comes to cybersecurity threats. “Be aware of supply chain threats,” Coats said in his speech. “Understand that cyberthreats to your supply chain are an insidious problem that can jeopardize the integrity of your products.” The remarks come after a cover story in Bloomberg Businessweek stated that Chinese intelligence agents […]

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Lawmakers ask intelligence community for ‘deepfakes’ assessment

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The intelligence community should assess how foreign governments could use so-called “deepfake” technology to harm U.S. national security interests, a bipartisan trio of lawmakers says. Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., wrote to the director of national intelligence Thursday, asking about technologies federal agencies or private companies could use to combat use of the content. Examples of it — including doctored videos involving famous people — have caught the public’s attention recently. “You have repeatedly raised the alarm about disinformation campaigns in our elections and other efforts to exacerbate political and social divisions in our society to weaken our nation,” the lawmakers wrote toDirector of National Intelligence Dan Coats. “We are deeply concerned that deep fake technology could soon be deployed by malicious foreign actors.” The rise of increasingly realistic deepfakes — video, audio, and images fueled by machine-learning algorithms and other tools — has prompted a conversation […]

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Executive order creates system for ‘automatic’ sanctions on foreigners interfering with U.S. elections

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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order authorizing sanctions against foreign individual, entity or country attempting to interfere in U.S. elections, the White House announced Wednesday. The order is not public yet, so the exact details remain unknown. The text was outlined by the White House in a phone call with reporters on Wednesday morning. Some sanctions would be “automatic” in cases where federal investigators identify meddling, White House officials said. “It’s a further effort among several that the administration has made,” national security adviser John Bolton said. “It includes not just interference against election or campaign infrastructure, but it also covers the distribution of propaganda and disinformation.” The executive order requires the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to make regular assessments about potential foreign interference in the election. It also asks for reports by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security in cases interference with election […]

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Trump administration touts “extensive, historic” actions to secure elections

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Numerous Trump administration officials spent Thursday expounding upon the efforts the government is taking to curb Russian-linked actors’ efforts to interfere with the 2018 midterm elections. National security adviser John Bolton, for example, issued a vigorous defense of President Donald Trump’s “extensive, historic” efforts to strengthen the security of U.S. elections while offering lawmakers classified briefings on these efforts. In a rebuttal to congressional Democrats, who have criticized Trump’s election-security efforts as insufficient, Bolton asserted that National Security Council meetings on the subject in July and May were evidence of “a level of dedication and action with respect to this threat that far exceeds that of previous administrations.” In a letter to five Democratic senators, Bolton said the Trump administration is taking “unprecedented action to punish Russia for its efforts to disrupt the political and electoral processes core to American democracy and the American way of life.” The Senate Democrats had written Bolton asking the White […]

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Trump’s refusal to call out Russian hacking provokes swift, sharp backlash

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President Donald Trump drew sharp criticism Monday from former intelligence officials and lawmakers after refusing to acknowledge or condemn Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election while standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. Following a closed-door tête-à-tête in Helsinki, Finland, the two leaders held a joint 45-minute press conference. During the wide-ranging session, among other things, the sitting U.S. president publicly declined to back the unanimous findings of his own U.S. intelligence community – that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, through a series of cyberattacks and carefully orchestrated information campaigns. “They said they think it’s Russia; I have asked President Putin, he just said ‘It’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” Within an hour, former intelligence chiefs were panning Trump and his statements at the press […]

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U.S. intelligence chief lays out threats to U.S. infrastructure, efforts to protect it

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The top U.S. intelligence official painted a grim picture on Friday of the many types of cyber threats the U.S. faces across critical infrastructure sectors and highlighted the ways the government is countering them. “These attacks come in different forms. Some are tailored to achieve very tactical goals, while others are implemented for strategic purposes, including the possibility of a crippling cyber attack against our critical infrastructure,” said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, speaking at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank. “But all of these desperate efforts share a common purpose to exploit America’s openness in order to undermine our long-term competitive advantage.” Coats said that U.S.’s digital infrastructure is under constant attack from foreign entities including China, Iran and North Korea, but he singled out Russia as the “most aggressive” one, highlighting the country’s reported efforts to use hacking and information campaigns to influence U.S. elections. The […]

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While U.S. ponders response to Russia, agencies’ hands are tied in cyberspace, intelligence chief says

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After senators repeatedly criticized him for the weak U.S. response to Russian cyberattacks and propaganda, the head of the intelligence community complained Tuesday that a lack of policy had stifled his agencies from taking action. The White House is currently involved in various policy discussions with intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department about how to best counter Russian operations, said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. But there’s still no timetable for when any of these policies will be either introduced or codified into law. In the meantime, “Russia is likely to continue to pursue even more aggressive cyberattacks with the intent of degrading our democratic values and weakening our alliances,” Coats said Tuesday at a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The National Security Council, White House Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Rob Joyce are discussing the appropriate policy and legal framework necessary […]

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DNI: Chinese hacking against U.S. companies is ‘ongoing’ but ‘significantly reduced’

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Chinese hacking against U.S. targets is ongoing but “at volumes significantly lower” than before the landmark agreement reached in 2015 between Beijing and Washington D.C., according to the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Former President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a deal in 2015 after cyberattacks that included widespread intellectual property theft for commercial gain, along with soft attribution that prompted threats of sanctions and other retaliation. Coats’ comments came in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday during a hearing on worldwide military threats faced by the United States. Almost two years after the agreement was signed, Coats’ assessment notes significant progress on the cybersecurity front between the world’s two biggest economies. “We assess that Beijing will continue actively targeting the U.S. government, its allies, and U.S. companies for cyber espionage,” Coats said in his written testimony. “Private-sector security experts continue to identify ongoing cyber […]

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