National Counterintelligence and Security Center director Bill Evanina tells @nickschifrin that recent Russian + Iranian cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure may have only accessed voter information accidentally, but of course, it still has the same end result: discord.
Evanina says his concern is not that foreign actors will be able to manipulate votes. But "the concern we have is a potential ransomware attack where systems are shut down and we're unable to process votes in a timely fashion."
Evanina distances himself from DNI Ratcliffe's statement that Iran's recent misinformation campaigns were designed to hurt President Trump: "I can only comment to the actual effects and impact of last week with respect to what happened with Iran's intentions...
More from Evanina to @nickschifrin: "logically, [Iran is] anti-this administration. When you get into the semantics of whether they're for President Trump or for Vice President Biden, I think we lose a little bit of the solemnness of the threat."
Evanina also makes pretty clear that he disagrees with AG Bill Barr who said last month China posed the biggest election threat. "I have been very clear about this... that, from an election perspective, Russia poses the greatest threat." He added China is greatest natsec threat.
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