US Intelligence Helping Social Media Companies Fight Foreign Malefactors, Official Says

The intelligence community provides classified information to social media companies to help counter malicious foreign actors on platforms, said Department of Homeland Security National Protection and Programs Directorate Undersecretary Christopher Krebs Friday. Krebs didn’t specify what information is provided at the Washington Post-Hewlett Packard event on Russian interference. Representatives from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube confirmed to the House Judiciary Committee last week that each of the platforms removed Russian-linked accounts and content related to election interference (see 1807170043).

Krebs said his office works every day with the FBI and state and local government, and there’s a “clear adversary.” Those efforts are in line with the intelligence community’s concerted effort to alert the public and the private sector about foreign cyberattacks. Attorney General Jeff Sessions detailed this approach Thursday in a 156-page report on cybersecurity strategy and efforts to counter foreign interference in U.S. elections. Answering questions about criticism of President Donald Trump’s comments at the last week's Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Krebs said the president is standing up to Russia and is committed to protecting U.S. election integrity.

The U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on cyber intelligence, said Office of the Director of National Intelligence Director-Cyber Threat Intelligence Tonya Ugoretz, and private sector collaboration allows a “holistic” picture of emerging threats. Information-sharing enables all parties to play stronger defense, she said. Rather than engage in offensive information warfare, it’s better for the U.S. intelligence community to commit its resources to robust defense, said ODNI Director-Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Jason Matheny. U.S. citizens also need to be wary of information they gather on social media, he said.

Information from the private sector ultimately allowed her agency to identify North Korea as the perpetrator behind the May 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, said Ugoretz. North Korea carried out the attack using malware to trick computers worldwide and hold them ransom, she said.

“Data is the new currency,” said Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Antonio Neri. HPE Chief Information Security Officer Elizabeth Joyce said the increasing number of devices and cyber position vacancies present a challenging future for the private sector. Devices now outnumber the world’s population 11 billion to 7 billion, and the cybersecurity workforce expects 3 million vacancies by 2020, she said.

U.S. intelligence knows Russia continues to mobilize cyberattack operations worldwide, said former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Chief information security officers have their hands full, he said, because they have to worry about state actors as well as independent attackers. In Helsinki, Trump questioned the intelligence community in front of the world, which will encourage Russian interference in the future, said former Department of State Coordinator for Cyber Issues Christopher Painter. The president undercut one America’s tools against Russia, which makes the country less safe, he said, noting Trump has not directly warned of consequences for future meddling. Rogers is now the host of CNN's Declassified and a national security commentator. Painter serves as a commissioner for the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace.