Trump campaign hacked, DOJ prepares charges against Iran | LiveNOW from FOX

from the presidential election as you take a live look right there. over the White House in DC now Federal investigators say they're doing everything they can to protect the integrity. of that election. The doj preparing criminal charges in connection with an Iranian Hack That targeted Donald Trump's presidential campaign The Associated Press reporting, via sources that the charges are the result of an FBI investigation. into an intrusion that multiple agencies quickly. linked to an Iranian effort to influence. American politics. The Trump campaign said last month that it was hacked by Iranian actors. Who stole sensitive internal documents. those confidential materials were then sent to news outlets that in. Included Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post, but the outlets did refuse to reveal any details about what it received from the hackers. the justice department has been raising alarms about aggressive efforts by countries like Iran and Russia. to meddle in the US presidential election through hacking and covert social media campaigns. That are designed to shape public opinion. The attempted breach of the Biden Harris campaign. earlier in the year was also linked to a Iran by those Federal investigators. so much to talk about here. So, I do want to bring in a friend of the show. Mark Chandler. director of government relations and professor of practice, at Coastal Carolina, University, Also a former senior defense, intelligence official, Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us as always. You're you're welcome, Josh and good morning to you, Good morning. Well, first off, I do want to talk about the overall information that came in that this was all linked to Iran and the charges are going to be filed there by the goj. First off though is it surprising at all that Iran would be linked to something like this. well, the short answer to the surprising question, Josh is no. Uh so if I can elaborate a little bit about looking back in time over a wrong capabilities you know, when when I was at 1 of my key positions in DOD intelligence, a little over a decade ago, we watched Iran. Really expand. Its cyber capabilities about 12 years ago. and it lasted for about 2 years. They had a significant what I would call Brute Force. cyber capability a lot of distributed denial of service. attacks. against the US. Financial infrastructure. us corporations and the US government. And this lasted for some time. as they continue to build that on top of that. Brute Force attack. Uh, it's it's in the news now, but it's was a significant attack against Saudi aramco. the oil. uh company in Saudi Arabia during that attack. Iran used something called the shamoon virus and in that they destroyed 35,000 computers in about 4 hours time and it set back the the distribution Network for the oil. And it also costs a ramco millions of dollars. So, Iran has a very viable cyber capability that people don't talk about a lot. So this is not surprising. and it's something that will continue. How exactly is the US government able to? so quickly Say, look, this is a Ron that is behind this because it was very definitive they said that Iran is behind. Not only the Trump campaign hacking but also the Biden Harris 1 from earlier this year, possibly other ones as well. well, that's the difficult part in any cyber operation. So it's very difficult to narrow down. Who an attacker is or who's conducting the Cyber attack because many times these cyber actors use what we call cutouts. And so that it may look like they're the attacks coming from a country in Europe. uh, from another organization. so they they really use these cutouts but what we start to see in following these attacks, is you start to see some cyber fingerprints. Start to develop if you will these hackers use. uh, some of the code that they've developed, that's reliable that they're familiar with. And, and if they continue to do that, then they're going to leave behind some traces and and our excellent cyber Defence capabilities that we have in DOD and in some indisa under DHS. They're going to be able to kind of start to trace that back. And and so what we see, in related to some charges that actually doj passed about April of this year. against some folks, who, who were attacking. thousands of American citizens. But also some corporations, you start to see this Trace back. And this particular 1 that we're discussing today. Actually, came about 6 months ago. and so when you look at that the time frame, this 1 did take months. It could take months or years. before we find a true culprit. in 1 of these type of attacks. But the the continuation of what Iran does helped discover this 1. to allow doj now to bring these charges. And speaking specifically about the charges, what? charges can the doj actually bring against these hackers and do they have to be located in the US for those charges to even matter? well, well, first off, they don't have to be located in the US. I mean we're, we're all the time sanctioning a foreign entity foreign individuals or we're bringing charges. If I, if I go back, into that, charge, I mentioned back in April, doj. fire filed, several charges against 2. Iranian individuals, and those primary charges were computer hacking. uh, wire fraud. That's a very common doj. Interstate wire fraud, computer used for wire fraud and computer destruction, are using a computer to destroy individual information or attack an individual. So those are kind of generic charges. easy to kind of build up your case for But when I'm trying to file those against a foreign entity or a foreign individual, that's going to be very difficult. So I would see the charges come out. in something along those lines. Similar to what the doj did in April. against the individuals. or whatever, organization inside. Iran. That we're going to trace this back to, and formally charged. Would you say that these charges possibly are more symbolic than anything? Well. unfortunately, I think that's a good. That's a good question and good point to make Josh. Yeah, they really are symbolic. It's not as if the United States is going to go in and grab these individuals out of Iran. or and definitely Iran is not going to turn them over since this This is a state sponsored attack on our system. and and so they're not gonna do it, those charges we filed in April, nothing has been done to the 2 iranistan. Yeah, and talking a little bit more here about the situation Overall, we know as we mentioned there, know, as we mentioned there, that it is pretty much symbolic. But the question that so many people have is what sort of impact could these hackers the leakers? What could they really do to the US election? well, well, that that we cannot underestimate Josh and and that's a great question because what we have to look at is they could come in very maliciously and actually destroy data. if they gain access to some of the critical. infrastructure and networks. Let's say some of our election networks that that are actually coordinated with the states because remember the states are responsible for their individual election processes and then interfering at the federal level. So they could actually go in and try to destroy data. in some sort of open network, and they're going to continue this. but they can also create a false narrative And when we have artificial until Intelligence. that's really wrong. crazy into Network environment. they could create. false narratives they could that, that could then gain traction. So, it could look like something's coming from either of these campaigns. or supporters of the campaigns. not be true, but be dropped at such a critical point or time in the election process. that there is no time to validate or verify that information and that's going to create its own uh, situation of of false narrative. misinformation or disinformation out there. That's that's where the damaging. effects could occur. Other than just, physical destruction of data. this is, is nothing new, right? We've seen situations like this happen Over previous election. cycles. and really just throughout time. Yes, we we have Josh and it's, it's gotten worse over time. I can go back to the 2016. election. and and there was a group called Fancy bear. This is a Russian hacking group that has direct ties to the grew. That is Russian military. intelligence and so they interfered in the 2016 election by hacking into and stealing data from the Democratic National Committee. And so that was some Hillary Clinton data that they absolutely didn't want. released. But fancy bear was able to go in and do that. And then when we moved forward to 2020, we saw China really start to jump into the frey. so fancy bear continued. Its attacks they changed their name a little bit. They they come up with different monikers for the the hacking groups that come in but then you see the groups are conium, come out of China, and they started to interfere in the elections and up their game in 2020. Iran. got into the act of also in 2020. So this election interference this year, Is not new for Iran, So you've got 3, primary actors who are, you know, striking out if you will against the United States election process and information flow Is there any way to know who is the biggest threat to, uh, the us here when we talk about? the Integrity of the election would it be? Iran? Russia China. do we know? or are they all kind of on equal? uh, playing fields. well, you you hit the Big 3. and I'm going to say those are the Big 3 primary. if I were to put them in some sort of hierarchal. Uh ranking. I'm going to go with Russia, China. and Iran. uh, in, in that order because of their, their historic. efforts to do this, but also, in their ability, You know, I talked about fancy bear. I talked about zirconium from China but we have to realize that there is a conservative effort. I don't think right now. and obviously I don't have access to the intelligence anymore that they are all 3 working together but that doesn't make them any less dangerous because all 3 are going to push. a a tax into the election process. and attacks. And this is very concerning. attacks on our our confidence, in our information. flow in the United States. you know, social media has really taken over and the data that flows through that And whether or not we're going to validate or verify the sources that really can lead to a lot of misinformation. And This information. and the critical thing is. a lack of confidence by Americans in the information, they're getting and in the security of our, our election process. And I think that's really what all 3 of those want to do, They want to destabilize. our electoral and political process. in in, in the current environment political environment we're in that, not hard to do. and so, you know, that they're going to continue to work. They are working. to completely destabilize our information. flow in the US You kind of have already touched on this, but my last question for you, Why is it so important that the American people? and All American people are aware that this is going on and this has the potential to has the election. well, I I think awareness is critical for the American public. I mean, when, when we look at things, aware that Russia China, Iran and North Korea. We can't, we can't forget the North Koreans. are out there. trying to do. harm to our information. flow. Back to. my analytic training. And so when I go to sources or I look at sources, you know, it's it's validate before I trust. and and I think we as American citizens need to understand that as as I mentioned the speed of information flow in today's society with social media, Uh, and now I can amplify that with artificial intelligence. We need to be acutely aware of the sources. and the information. that's coming from there. I, I, I mean, some of your peers in the media, Josh, they don't necessarily do a great job of validating the sources before they start to put things out there. You know, I appreciate the fact that uh, the New York Post and Politico kind of held back on. releasing the information that this Iranian hacker group had, but we don't see that every day. and there are no checks and balances on social media. So, it's, it's on us, the viewer, the readers. to to step up our game, if you will and, and trust that there's an an old saying, you know, in in the marketing and in shopping buyer, beware, And now I have to say reader and viewer beware when you start to click or you start to open some sort of phishing attempt against you. or some sort of exploitation media, going against you, we have to be aware that there are people wanting to destabilize. our political process. and that's something that that is a direct threat and will be for the next few months until the election. And then after that, A lot of great and important information. there, Mark Chandler, as always, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Anything else you want to add about any of this before? I let you go. Well, know Josh, I think your last question. really drives the point home about Americans. situational and, and what I would say, information, awareness, that's something that that we can actually take control of if, if we take our individual responsibilities and validate that information. we can actually stop this interference. not stop the attempts, but we can then take control of our political processes and, and ensure that we're looking at the right information. and we're making decisions based on facts. versus speculation or some. foreign influence on our elections. I think it's critical and I'm really glad you You brought this topic up today. All right, Mark Chandler again. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with us, as