STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Voting went pretty smoothly across the country on Election Day, even though it was a high-turnout election and even though the FBI determined that there were hoax bomb threats to polling locations across several swing states, and these threats appear to have originated from Russian email domains. So we called back Chris Krebs. He's the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Under the Trump administration, he was famously fired by Trump after he vouched for the integrity of the 2020 election that Trump lost. He now sits on the agency's Cyber Safety Review Board. Welcome back.
CHRIS KREBS: Hey, Steve, morning. Good to be back.
INSKEEP: How would you rate this election?
KREBS: Well, like I said in 2020, it was just another Tuesday on the internet. We didn't see any real cyberactivity directed against the U.S. election infrastructure. So it was by all accounts a safe and secure election, I think, just like it was in 2020.
INSKEEP: What did you make, though, of these bomb threats?
KREBS: Yeah. That, I think, was the notable activity yesterday. As you mentioned in the intro, there were dozens of bomb threats that came into several key swing states, including Fulton County, Georgia, where it was about a third, if not more, of jurisdictions received these bomb threats. As you mentioned, they came from an email provider based in Russia, mail.ru. RU is the top-level domain for Russian internet sites. It's not clear, though, who's actually behind it. It might not be government-linked actors. Typically, the tradecraft of Russian hackers is to obfuscate, to hide where they're originating from. So saying, hey, we're from Russia, isn't typically the way they do it. So it could be a hacking group seeking notoriety. And I think that's what the ensuing days and weeks and investigation will unveil.
INSKEEP: There's an important part of the story, though, that I want to underline and understand a little bit better. And that is that these multiple bomb threats seem to have caused no long-lasting disruption. Whatever brief evacuation or other action needed to be taken, people seemed to be prepared. They seemed to have backup plans. They seemed to move on rather quickly.
KREBS: I think that's right. And look, we've said this for years and years and years that election officials are natural emergency managers. They know how to deal with things that pop up and create adversity. And bomb threats are something that I think we've had to deal with in elections for the last several cycles. So it's not just a 2024 thing. So they had playbooks. They knew how to assess the incoming threats. They knew how to evacuate. They knew how to start back up, and they knew how to work with lawyers from the opposing parties and then go to the courts and extend hours for voting to overcome any disruption. So, you know, this went pretty smoothly from a response side. It is unfortunate, of course, that anybody was inconvenienced, but it looks like, once again, the system held.
INSKEEP: Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which feels like it's repetitive there, Chris, but that is the name - C-I-S-A. I got it right, didn't I?
KREBS: We like security so much, it's in our name twice.
INSKEEP: Excellent, OK (laughter).
KREBS: At least, that's what I was saying back in the day.
INSKEEP: Thanks. It's a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much.
KREBS: All right. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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