Category Archives: William Evanina

China aims its influence operations at incoming Biden administration, top intel official says

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China has increased its influence operations targeting incoming Biden administration personnel and their associates since the presidential election, the top U.S. counterintelligence official said Wednesday. “We’re starting to see that now play [out] across the country, to not only the folks who are in the new administration, but those who are around those folks in the new administration,” William Evanina, who heads the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said at an online event hosted by the Aspen Institute. Evanina did not elaborate on what the Chinese influence activity entailed. But another U.S. intelligence official told CyberScoop it included intelligence collection and efforts to shape U.S. policy. Evanina did say that China had engaged in an “uptick” in influence operations since the Nov. 3 election of Joe Biden that were focused on the president-elect’s advisers. Chinese influence activity in the past has included amplification of state-controlled media outlets and other means of […]

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List of 2020 election meddlers includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, US intelligence official says

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Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea are working to influence U.S. elections by running information operations, according to the top counterintelligence official in the Trump administration. All three seek to sow discord as Election Day looms, according to Bill Evanina, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He did not specify the nature and duration of the operations. “I believe we’re going to have a lot of things that occur in the next 70 days that are going to impact and influence those issues, from nation-state threat actors, whether it be Iran, China, and obviously Russia. We have other countries getting in the nexus because they think it works,” Evanina said during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce virtual event Wednesday. “They want to be able to provide their optics for discord in the United States … countries like Cuba, and […]

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China doesn’t want Trump re-elected; Russia is denigrating Biden, US intel official says

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China prefers that President Donald Trump not win a second term, while Russia is working to denigrate presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Friday in an unusually direct statement on election interference. The Chinese government has “expanded its influence efforts” ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, and grown increasingly critical of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus and its closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, said William Evanina, head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. Moscow, meanwhile, has used “a range of measures” to try to sully Biden’s candidacy, Evanina said, in line with Russia’s criticism of Biden when he was vice president. “Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television,” Evanina said. The Iranian government, for its part, has looked to undermine U.S. institutions and Trump, and sow divisions among […]

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Trump administration wants private sector to do more to counter foreign intelligence efforts

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The Trump administration’s counterintelligence strategy, released Monday, aims for stronger collaboration between the intelligence community and the private sector on detecting and stopping foreign intelligence threats to U.S. entities. The plan, which President Donald Trump approved in early January, emphasizes a longstanding government argument that the private sector must do more to prevent foreign espionage. As state-sponsored hackers target more U.S. companies, corporate America should prioritize preparations to stifle similar attacks in the future, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Bill Evanina, told reporters at a briefing Monday. “A hostile nation state attack on a private U.S. company … is a counterintelligence attack on our nation,” he said. The NCSC is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Earlier on Monday the Department of Justice announced charges against four members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for allegedly hacking into Equifax to steal information about roughly 147 million Americans. Prosecutors also alleged […]

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Army Cyber Command brings in outside help to fight insider threats

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Two companies announced Thursday a $6.5 million contract award to help the United States Army Cyber Command shore up counterintelligence efforts. Applied Insight and DV United will work in tandem to support Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) with its User Activity Monitoring Program (UAM). The two companies have experience handling cyber weapons systems, insider threat analysis and computer network defense for the Pentagon and the wider intelligence community. Greg Walker, president of Applied Insights, told CyberScoop that prior partnerships with the Army, Air Force and FBI were key to fostering trust and securing the ARCYBER contract. Thomas Dalton, chief operating officer of DV United, voiced similar sentiments. “Our deep experience providing cyber and information security mission solutions to the government has assisted in securing federal networks, combating cybercrime and protecting critical infrastructure,” Dalton said in a press release. Over five years, the two companies will monitor user activity, identify potential insider […]

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Top U.S. counterintelligence official: Kaspersky’s move to Switzerland doesn’t matter

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The ongoing fight between the U.S. government and Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab led the company to begin moving “a good part” of its infrastructure to Switzerland in a highly-visible move toward transparency in the face of spying accusations. The U.S.’s top counterintelligence official, however, says Kaspersky’s move to Switzerland makes no difference to him. William Evanina, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, looks at the way the U.S. government handles Kaspersky — which is now banned from the U.S. federal government and is losing ground in the private sector — as “an opportunity to create a model,” he said. “This will not be the last time this happens. I think there will be more to come along, I call them ‘nation-state threats that emanate through the global business process.’ ” Kaspersky’s opening of a “Transparency Center” in Switzerland is significant but leaves open a wide range of questions. The company has […]

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