In the keynote speech at a cybersecurity conference in San Francisco Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen warned foreign actors not to interfere in U.S. elections, saying the U.S. has and will not hesitate to employ "a spectrum of response options both seen and unseen."
However, Nielsen's words come at the same time President Trump has refused to implement new sanctions on Russia, once again softening the United States' stance against the one nation proven already to have interfered in the U.S. presidential election.
Meanwhile, Nielsen's department is offering aid to states in preparation for the midterms.
Under Nielsen’s leadership, the Department of Homeland Security is providing voluntary assistance to state and local officials administering elections to secure their voting infrastructure, including testing their digital systems for potential vulnerabilities. The department is also working to share sensitive threat information with states.
On Tuesday, Nielsen said she is confident that the department is doing everything it can to help secure election infrastructure, though she acknowledged that officials need to continue to forge better partnerships with state election officials.
“We do need to continue to move forward and do more,” Nielsen said. “It’s a continuous attack circumstance here.”
(...)
Nielsen insisted Tuesday that Trump is committed to preventing future meddling in U.S. elections by Russia or other any other foreign actor.
“I’m very confident that the president and I are both committed to ensuring that we do all we can do to prevent any meddling in the election,” Nielsen said.
(...)
She said the department is focused on evaluating “systemic risks” that could have a cascading effect on U.S. critical services, making sure that systems can quickly recover in the event of successful attacks and determining how to deter adversaries from carrying out malicious cyber activity.
“The threats are so severe that if we don’t start identifying and punishing our assailants, they will overtake us and the cost of interconnectivity will start to outweigh the many benefits,” Nielsen warned.
DHS chief issues stern warning to Russia, others on election meddling, cyberattacks (The Hill)