NSA, Cyber Command preparing for Chinese cyberthreat to 2024 elections

The National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command are preparing for foreign cyberthreats to the 2024 elections with an emphasis on how China may change its disruption playbook before November.

Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, leader of the NSA and Cyber Command, said the two agencies under his watch have already mobilized their Election Security Group and harbor fresh concerns about China and artificial intelligence.

Federal cyber officials were fixated on Russia during the 2018 midterm elections, then saw the emergence of an Iranian cyberthreat to elections, and now are girding for challenges from China in 2024, Gen. Nakasone said at an Intelligence and National Security Alliance event.

“We think about what’s going to be the role of threat adversaries such as China. Will it be similar to what they did in 2022 when they targeted a series of very specific elections or will it be more broad?” Gen. Nakasone said.

Gen. Nakasone did not identify the specific elections China targeted in his remarks at the INSA event on Friday before an audience of current and former intelligence community officials, including FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.

The Election Security Group’s preparations for 2024 grew from a small team assembled to battle Russian cyberattackers ahead of the 2018 election, and it expanded its work amid growing threats to elections afterward.

The team is singularly focused on foreign threats and includes members who are information specialists, planners and operations specialists who leave domestic work to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Before the 2022 midterm elections, the Election Security Group told The Washington Times that thousands of people were working on defending American elections from foreign cyber threats.

As 2024 approaches, Gen. Nakasone said the Election Security Group is already bracing for the November elections.

“We’re going to generate insights, we’re going to share intelligence and information and we’re going to take action,” Gen. Nakasone said. “This is what we’re going to do, with a series of partners operating outside the United States, this is where our purview is and this is where I think our competitive advantage is.”

The spread of fear, uncertainty and doubt about the U.S. intelligence community’s actions regarding elections has been exacerbated by the actions of its former employees.

Before the 2020 election, 51 former senior intelligence officers signed a public statement saying news of emails attributed to Hunter Biden, the president’s son, “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Signatories of the letter included retired intelligence community chiefs, including former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper.