2018 election? reporter: yes, absolutely. we ve been told now for months, both publicly and privately through public warnings but privately being told by the fbi that they continue to see a sustained level of people doing two things. this sort of thing, trying to publicly put information out into social media to basically cause confusion, and secondly, continued attempts to hack into election systems, although they re not sure exactly who is behind that. but they are quite sure that state hackers, in this case russia, continue to try to use state media to basically meddle in the midterms. stay with us if you can, pete, but i remember, tom, we mentioned the politicians from barack obama, marco rubio and on. but robert mueller is also a part of this, right?
alert from its cyberdivision, again, warning state election officials, warning secretaries of state that they needed to take steps now to beef up their firewalls, beef up their other security measures because it wasn t some vague sense of russian hostile intentions toward our elections. no, by that point the fbi cyberdivision had observed russian state hackers specifically targeting multiple u.s. states and succeeding in breaching security and getting into election systems so conceivably they could mess with the vote or mess with voter registrations in at least two states. so the fbi sent out that flash alert august 18th, 2016, sent it from the fbi cyberdivision that was supposed to be a secret alert to all the states. of course, it immediately leaked to the press. but at least at this point, you know, the call from the homeland security secretary, with the public reporting that it was russian state actors who hacked the democratic party with this flash secret alert from fbi cyber, hey
appeared to be their designs specifically on our election infrastructure in the states. now that call, jeh johnson will later explain, didn t go all that well, but then three days later, august 18th, 2016, the fbi sent out a secret flash alert from its cyberdivision, again, warning state election officials, warning secretaries of state that they needed to take steps now to beef up their firewalls, beef up their other security measures because it wasn t some vague sense of hostile intentions towards our elections. no, by that point the fbi cyberdivision had observed russian state hackers specifically targeting multiple u.s. states and succeeding in breeching security and getting into election systems so conceivably they could mess with the vote or mess with voter registrations in at least two states. so the fbi sent out that flash alert august 18th, 2016, sent it from the fbi cyberdivision that was supposed to be a secret alert to all the states.
specifically on our election infrastructure in the states. now that call, jeh johnson will later explain, didn t go all that well, but then three days later, august 18th, 2016, the fbi sent out a secret flash alert from its cyberdivision, again, warning state election officials, warning secretaries of state that they needed to take steps now to beef up their firewalls, beef up their other security measures because it wasn t some vague sense of hostile intentions towards our elections. no, by that point the fbi cyberdivision had observed russian state hackers specifically targeting multiple u.s. states and succeeding in breaching security and getting into election systems so conceivably they could mess with the vote or mess with voter
the committee foiled an act of hacking. it was a reminder that election security is mostly in the hands of individual companies and jurisdictions. the federal government plays a mostly deterrent role against what nielsen says is the big four state hackers. russia, north korea, china, and iran. our message is simple, we will identify you and you will pay a high price. so don t bother. two bills that would impose such a price remained stalled in the senate. the director of national intelligence to determine within 30 days of an election whether a foreign state interfered and impose automatic sanctions. the secure elections act would require vendors of election machines to report any problems to dhs and to date members of the senate intelligence committee wrote one of the nation s largest election vendors warning they want to submit to independent testing.