Pierluigi Paganini November 14, 2020

Chris Krebs, the director of DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, expecting to be fired as White House frustrations hit agency protecting elections.

Chris Krebs, the director of DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) expects the White House to fire him, as the Trump administration continues a purge of officials that are considered disloyal to the former President Trump.

Chris Krebs has hardly worked to protect the election process, as a consequence it is not possible for Trump administrators to prove fraud or interference.

Krebs and its staff have made great work ensuring that the 2020 election was not tampered with by nation-state actors, this election was called by the DHS  “the most secure in election history.”

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.” reads the statement published by CISA.

“When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

Former President Trump, after having lost the election speculated that widespread voter fraud took place during the election, he also filed several lawsuits in several US states disavowing the result of the vote without producing evidence to support his allegations.

Because of the CISA’s support of a fair election process, the White House is expected to call for Krebs’ resignation, according to a Reuters report, citing sources close to the CISA chief.

CISA set up a website dubbed “Rumor Control” to debunk misinformation about the election, a move that aroused the ire of the White House

“White House officials have asked for content to be edited or removed which pushed back against numerous false claims about the election, including that Democrats are behind a mass election fraud scheme. CISA officials have chosen not to delete accurate information.” reported the Reuters agency in exclusive.

“In particular, one person said, the White House was angry about a CISA post rejecting a conspiracy theory that falsely claims an intelligence agency supercomputer and program, purportedly named Hammer and Scorecard, could have flipped votes nationally. No such system exists, according to Krebs, election security experts and former U.S. officials.”

Bryan Ware, assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, also told Reuters that he had handed in his resignation on Thursday, a U.S. official familiar with his matter said the White House asked for Ware’s resignation earlier this week.

Lawmakers and other observers condemned the decision that the administration has taken.

“Chris Krebs has done a great job protecting our elections,” tweeted Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).

“Krebs has been one of the top and most visible election security officials and has aggressively debunked misinformation in the aftermath,” said Patrick Howell O’Neill, a cyber reporter at MIT Technology Review.

It is my opinion that the CISA, under the Krebs’s administration, demonstrated a great efficiency, providing detailed and regular security advisories about cyber threats, threat actors and key vulnerabilities.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Chris Krebs)

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