Private warnings of foreign election interference on the rise

Office of the Director of National Intelligence officials disclosed that more private notices of foreign election interferencehave been issued by the agency's Foreign Malign Influence Center to organizations and political campaign teams during the past 12 months than since its emergence two years ago, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Russia was noted by an ODNI official to be the leading threat to the upcoming U.S. presidential polls, with the country expected to launch campaigns targeting support provided by the U.S. to Ukraine, as well as sowing doubt on election integrity. However, the election interference-combating hub is also looking into threats from China and Iran, said the official. Such threats have prompted the center to bolster election security preparations through a series of process rehearsal exercises to be conducted alongside the Homeland Security, Justice, and Treasury departments and authentication exercises, as well as increased coordination with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in countering state- and local-level disinformation campaigns, according to another official.