Critical Releases in Homeland Security: April 7, 2021

From the Overview: "The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States of America, 2020-2022 highlights the expanding and evolving nature of threats to U.S. critical infrastructure organizations from foreign state and non-state actors. Foreign adversaries are no longer simply targeting the U.S. government, as was often the case during the Cold War, but today are using their sophisticated intelligence capabilities against a much broader set of targets, including U.S. critical infrastructure and other private sector and academic entities. These U.S. industry and academic organizations are now squarely in the geopolitical battlespace. The intent of this report is to raise awareness of the human threat to critical infrastructure, provide information on how to incorporate this threat vector into organizational risk management, and offer best practices on how to mitigate insider threats. This report complements existing NITTF [National Insider Threat Task Force] guidance by offering an expanded discussion of how critical infrastructure entities can use insider threat programs that focus on human behaviors to address key vulnerabilities and prevent them from being exploited by adversaries."

From the Background: "This product provides a declassified overview of findings and recommendations from a classified joint report from the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security addressing the impact of activities by foreign governments and their agents targeting election infrastructure or infrastructure pertaining to political organizations, candidates, or campaigns used in the 2020 US federal elections on the security or integrity of such infrastructure. Pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 13848, the joint report relied on the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) addressing foreign threats to the 2020 US elections."

From the Executive Summary: "The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has shown that health-related misinformation and disinformation can dangerously undermine the response to a public health crisis. Contradictory messaging and active subversion have reduced trust in public health responders, increased belief in false medical cures, and politicized public health measures aimed at curbing transmission of the disease. Setbacks in the COVID-19 response have highlighted that health-related misinformation or disinformation can lead to more infections, deaths, disruption, and disorganization of the effort. The public health response and communication environment in the United States have been disrupted by significant distrust in government, exacerbated by confusing and conflicting messages from leaders. As a result, information voids have developed, easily filled by false or misleading information and directly targeted by perpetrators of disinformation. Taken together, the spread and consequence of public health misinformation and disinformation can lead to a range of outcomes that have national security implications and require effective response. [...] The development of a national strategy to prevent and respond to COVID-19 and future public health misinformation and disinformation is an important first step in the establishment of a solution set to this threat."