Overnight Cybersecurity: Russia pushes back on Intel hearing | Google offers election security |

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:

–MOSCOW PUSHES BACK ON HOUSE INTEL HEARING: A Kremlin spokesman called the House Intelligence Committee “confused” on Tuesday, a day after it heard FBI Director James Comey’s testimony regarding an investigation into possible ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russia. Dmitry Peskov, a Russian spokesman and top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, accused the intelligence committee members of trying to find evidence to support their preconceived beliefs, according to an Associated Press report “[T]he hearing participants are confused about the situation,” Peskov told reporters in Moscow. “They are trying to find confirmation of their own conclusions, but can’t find either proof or confirmation and are going round in circles.” To read more, click here.

–…SARAH PALIN, TOO, PUSHES BACK ON HOUSE INTEL HEARING: Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) says FBI Director James Comey is “tainted” by ties to the Clinton Foundation. “The swamp runs deep,” she wrote on Facebook. “Where are congressional ‘investigators’ on this conflict of interest issue?” “Why aren’t dots more clearly connected by those in authority, those privy to information that we peasants are not?” the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee asked. “Why is tainted Comey still part of Team Trump? How long does he get to ride the train? Comey on Monday confirmed the FBI is probing Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, including possible collusion between now-President Trump’s campaign and Moscow. The FBI director also revealed the Department of Justice (DOJ) has “no information” backing Trump’s claims former President Barack Obama wiretapped him in 2016. Trump tweeted earlier this month that Obama, who endorsed Hillary Clinton last year, wiretapped Trump Tower in New York City before Election Day. Palin’s Facebook post included a link to an article on her website noting links between Comey and the Clinton Foundation. In a mid-November speech to disappointed supporters, Clinton blamed Comey for her election loss, citing his late letter announcing new emails from her controversial server had been found.

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

{mosads}–…DEM WORRIES ABOUT PUSHBACK. At a Brookings Institute talk, House Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) worried many of his colleagues might be pulling punches at the hearing to protect the president. “There is a seeming hesitancy to dig too deeply into possible collusion between the trump organization and the Russians and to ascribe too much to Moscow, lest it call into question the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2016 election,” he said, later adding “If at the end of the day both parties issue competing conclusions, we will have added very little to our nation’s understanding of this attack on our democracy.

–…KELLYANNE CONWAY: NO VOTES WERE CHANGED: On “Fox and Friends,” White House counselor Conway emphasized that FBI Director James Comey’s Tuesday testimony is that vote totals were not changed through cyberattacks during last year’s presidential election. Comey “confirmed that no votes were changed or affected in any of the swing states that President Trump won,” Conway said Tuesday on “Fox & Friends.” “That’s important because if you listen to the Democrats and many of their friends, they insist this collusion and this effect on the election — it simply was not there.”

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

A POLICY UPDATE:

STOPPING THE NEXT POLITICAL DATA BREACH: On the heels of his panel’s first hearing on Russian election hacking, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is advocating changes to allow better communications about ongoing cyber threats to targets and the public.

At a Brookings Institution talk Tuesday on the future of the Western geopolitical order, Schiff advocated for an executive branch that is quicker on the draw to make public attributions on nation-backed data breaches — and an intelligence community allowed to better coordinate with potential victims of attacks.

The comments came as Schiff assessed the national response to Russian interference in the 2016 election, attacks that included the breach of the Democratic National Committee and other political targets.

“No president can allow an attack of this sort to continue without making public attribution and informing the public. I understand the dilemma President Obama found himself in, but his voice would have been critical in ensuring the full dimensions of the Russian meddling penetrated into the public consciousness,” said Schiff.

Former President Barack Obama reportedly chose to hold off on having the intelligence community publicly identify Russia as the culprit for months to avoid the appearance of political favoritism. Though the general consensus that Russia was behind the attacks appears to have existed as far back as the summer of 2016, the attribution was not released until October.

Schiff also proposed new laws to free intelligence agencies to better keep lawmakers and victims apprised of attacks.

“Congress can work to institute early warning systems that dictate procedures by which the intelligence community can forward timely notification to the president, congressional leadership and affected parties as soon as suspected active measures are detected,” he said.

At Monday’s House Intelligence hearing on Russian election interference, FBI Director James Comey said he regretted the ill-fated notification his bureau attempted to give the DNC that the organization was under attack from a major threat. The New York Times reported that the FBI left messages with the DNC’s IT help desk, received by a contractor not versed in cybersecurity who was unsure whether the warnings were prank calls

At the hearing, Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) asked Comey if he would do things differently. Comey replied, “We would have sent up a much larger flare, we’d have kept banging and banging on the door.”

“We made extensive efforts to notify, but knowing what I know now, I might have walked over there myself.”

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

A LIGHTER CLICK:

NEWLY FOUNDHOOVER HOME VIDEO IS THE EARLIEST KNOWN COLOR FILM OF THE WHITE HOUSE. Spoiler…it’s a white house.

WHAT’S IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

GOOGLE AND JIGSAW: Jigsaw, a socially minded tech incubator run by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is distributing a free suite of tools to protect elections the world over.

Protect Your Election includes an anti-phishing program, two-factor identification software and mitigation of an attack known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS), and is meant for elections infrastructure, political parties and newspapers covering the contests.

“Defense of free expression is at the core of Jigsaw’s mission,” said Jigsaw Head of Communications and Senior Advisor Dan Keyserling. “And protecting elections websites is critical to that.”

On Tuesday, Jigsaw and Google announced a French-language version of the tools and began outreach to French election stakeholders. Keyserling says a German version will soon follow.

Keyserling said one of the tools successfully protected a website under constant attack during the recent Dutch elections after an attack knocked temporarily knocked the site offline earlier in the campaign using a denial of service attack. Denial of service attacks incapacitate servers by flooding them with an overwhelming amount of traffic.

Though the DDoS attacks never stopped, Keyserling said Jigsaw and Google were able to keep the site online through its Project Shield service.

To read the rest of our piece, click here.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

China prepares for cyberwar. (Passcode)

People who think they are tech savvy are nearly 20% more likely to have their identity stolen. (Sophos)

The Necurs botnet is back…with a get rich quick scam. (Cisco)

To repair their own equipment, American farmers must hack John Deer tractors and install Ukrainian firmware. (Motherboard)

A UK Green politician alleges the Metropolitan Police used Indian hackers to spy on protesters.

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

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