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Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Mark Warner is urgently warning that America’s readiness to deal with cyber chaos targeting the country’s upcoming elections is worse under President Biden than it was under former President Donald Trump.
The extraordinary criticism from the Virginia Democrat has provoked pushback from the White House but the threat is too serious to ignore, Mr. Warner said at the CrowdStrike Gov Threat Summit on Tuesday.
Mr. Warner has sounded the same alarm at gatherings of cybersecurity professionals hosted by companies CrowdStrike and Trellix in Washington in recent weeks.
“I think we’re not as prepared in March of 2024 as we were in March of [2020], which is hard for me to say since I’m a Democrat and we’re under a Democratic president, than we were under President Trump then,” Mr. Warner said at Tuesday’s summit.
As the leader of the Senate’s committee with oversight of the intelligence community, Mr. Warner is regularly briefed on what U.S. officials know about foreign threats to elections.
Unfortunately, he said, he does not have complete clarity, in contrast to four years ago.
He said America’s cyber posture worsened because foreign countries have discovered that meddling is inexpensive and easy, voters are more distrustful than four years ago, and the federal government’s information-sharing with various social media platforms has dramatically slowed down.
“Countries have learned — our adversaries and frankly even some that are quasi-allies, because there are other countries that we’ve got evidence we can’t talk about, of wanting to interfere — that this is remarkably effective and really cheap,” Mr. Warner said.
Mr. Warner did not identify the countries he thinks are trying to interfere in the November elections. His dire warning to cybersecurity professionals in government and the private sector closely mirrors the alarm he sounded in front of a similar audience assembled in Washington last month.
He said at the Trellix Cybersecurity Summit in February that he worried U.S. officials are less prepared for foreign intervention in elections this year than in 2020, particularly threats involving artificial intelligence.
“The kind of manipulation that was going to take place in 2016 looks like child’s play at this point,” Mr. Warner said at the February gathering. “AI can do this at a scale and speed that’s unprecedented.”
Mr. Warner said in February he wanted American officials to do a better job of “re-alerting the American public.”
He pledged before both CrowdStrike and Trellix’s audiences to hold public hearings to better explain the threat to America’s elections that he fears.
Mr. Warner made clear on Tuesday he is not as worried about cyberthreats to voting machines as he is about foreign influence efforts.
He told the CrowdStrike audience that the country’s election machinery appears to be in “pretty good shape.”
“I feel better about that than I do about the misinformation, disinformation,” Mr. Warner said.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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