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      Russian hackers targeting US political campaigns ahead of elections, Microsoft warns

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      The same Russian military intelligence outfit that hacked the Democrats in 2016 has attempted similar intrusions into the computer systems of organizations involved in the 2020 elections, Microsoft said Thursday.Those efforts, which have targeted more than 200 organizations including political parties and consultants, appear to be part of a broader increase in targeting of US political campaigns and related groups, the company said.“What we’ve seen is consistent with previous attack patterns that not only target candidates and campaign staffers but also those who they consult on key issues,” Tom Burt, a Microsoft vice-president, said in a blogpost.Most of the infiltration attempts by Russian, Chinese and Iranian agents were halted by Microsoft security software and the targets notified, he said. The company would not comment on who may have been successfully hacked or the impact.Microsoft did not assess which foreign adversary poses the greater threat to the integrity of the November presidential election. The consensus among cybersecurity experts is that Russian interference is the gravest. Senior Trump administration officials have disputed that, though without offering any evidence.Intelligence officials have found that – as in 2016 – the Russian government is attempting to undermine the Democratic candidate and boost Donald Trump’s chances of winning. In 2016, actors working on behalf of the Russian government hacked email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and publicly released stolen files and emails. The Russian government also funded “troll farms” in St Petersburg where nationals pretending to be from the US would post misinformation online to sow unrest.“This is the actor from 2016, potentially conducting business as usual,” said John Hultquist, the director of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm FireEye. “We believe that Russian military intelligence continues to pose the greatest threat to the democratic process.”The subject of Russian interference has been an ongoing frustration for Trump, who has disputed the country’s meddling in the 2016 elections despite extensive evidence, calling it a “witch hunt”. Trump loyalists at the Department of Homeland Security have also manipulated and fabricated intelligence reports to downplay the threat of Russian interference, a whistleblower claimed on Wednesday.A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign said it takes cybersecurity threats “very seriously” and does not publicly comment on specific efforts it is making.“As President Trump’s re-election campaign, we are a large target, so it is not surprising to see malicious activity directed at the campaign or our staff,” she said. “We work closely with our partners, Microsoft and others, to mitigate these threats.”The attempted hacks come at a time when election security concerns are remarkably high, given that many people will be voting with mail-in ballots due to the Covid-19 pandemic. An international body in August called these “the most challenging” US election in recent decades.Campaigns are also at a heightened risk for hacking given that many employees are now working from home without heightened security measures that may exist on workplace computers, said Bob Stevens, the vice-president of mobile security firm Lookout.“Mobile devices now exist at the intersection of our work and personal lives,” he said. “Considering how reliant we are on them to support all aspects of our lives, bad actors have taken note.”The Microsoft revelations on Thursday show that Russian military intelligence continues to pursue election-related targets undeterred by US indictments, sanctions and other countermeasures, Hultquist said.Microsoft, which has visibility into these efforts because its software is both ubiquitous and highly rated for security, did not address whether US officials who manage elections or operate voting systems have been targeted by state-backed hackers this year. US intelligence officials say they have so far not seen no evidence of that. More

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      Trump 'wanted to play down' Covid despite knowing deadliness, Bob Woodward book says – live

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      President downplayed severity of virus to avoid ‘panic’
      DHS whistleblower: I was told to stop providing intel on Russian interference
      Biden speaks in Michigan: Trump betrayed the American people
      Fauci calls pausing of vaccine trial ‘unfortunate’
      Justice department seeks to defend Trump in defamation lawsuit
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      0:59

      ‘I don’t want to create panic’: Trump defends coronavirus remarks he made to Bob Woodward – video

      Key events

      Show

      5.05pm EDT17:05
      Today so far

      4.11pm EDT16:11
      Trump says he ‘perhaps’ misled Americans about coronavirus

      4.02pm EDT16:02
      Trump on Woodward revelations: ‘I don’t want to create panic’

      3.55pm EDT15:55
      Trump releases list of potential supreme court nominees

      2.55pm EDT14:55
      DHS whistleblower: I was told to stop providing intel on Russian election interference

      2.10pm EDT14:10
      Biden: Trump’s Covid-19 response a ‘life and death betrayal of the American people’

      1.45pm EDT13:45
      Today so far

      Live feed

      Show

      5.37pm EDT17:37

      A Trump administration official at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been trying to prevent Dr Fauci from speaking publicly about the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, Politico reports.
      From Politico:

      Emails obtained by POLITICO show Paul Alexander — a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, HHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs — instructing press officers and others at the National Institutes of Health about what Fauci should say during media interviews. The Trump adviser weighed in on Fauci’s planned responses to outlets including Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and the science journal Cell.
      Alexander’s lengthy messages, some sent as recently as this week, are couched as scientific arguments. But they often contradict mainstream science while promoting political positions taken by the Trump administration on hot-button issues ranging from the use of convalescent plasma to school reopening.
      The emails add to evidence that the White House, and Trump appointees within HHS, are pushing health agencies to promote a political message instead of a scientific one.
      “I continue to have an issue with kids getting tested and repeatedly and even university students in a widespread manner…and I disagree with Dr. Fauci on this. Vehemently,” Alexander wrote in one Aug. 27 email, responding to a press-office summary of what Fauci intended to tell a Bloomberg reporter.
      And on Tuesday, Alexander told Fauci’s press team that the scientist should not promote mask-wearing by children during an MSNBC interview.
      “Can you ensure Dr. Fauci indicates masks are for the teachers in schools. Not for children,” Alexander wrote. “There is no data, none, zero, across the entire world, that shows children especially young children, spread this virus to other children, or to adults or to their teachers. None. And if it did occur, the risk is essentially zero,” he continued — adding without evidence that children take influenza home, but not the coronavirus.
      In a statement attributed to Caputo, HHS said that Fauci is an important voice during the pandemic and that Alexander specializes in analyzing the work of other scientists.

      5.30pm EDT17:30

      Edward Helmore

      The White House coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s decision to pause global trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine was “unfortunate” – but not an uncommon safety precaution in a vaccine development process.
      The UK drugmaker AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it had voluntarily paused trials, including late-stage ones, after an unexplained illness in a participant.
      The company said it was working to expedite a review of safety data by an independent committee to minimize any potential impact on the trial timeline.
      “This particular candidate from the AstraZeneca company had a serious adverse event, which means you put the rest of the enrollment of individual volunteers on hold until you can work out precisely what went on,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the top public health expert on the coronavirus, said in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday morning.
      “It’s really one of the safety valves that you have on clinical trials such as this, so it’s unfortunate that it happened,” Fauci added. “Hopefully, they’ll work it out and be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial but you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.”
      The vaccine, which AstraZeneca is developing with the University of Oxford, has been described by the World Health Organization as probably the world’s leading candidate and the most advanced in terms of development.
      Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University school of public health said via Twitter that the significance of the interruption was unclear.
      “We have no idea whether this is a big deal or not. Science is hard. This is why we have to let the trials play out. I remain optimistic we will have a vaccine found to be safe and effective in upcoming months,” he said, but cautioned: “Optimism isn’t evidence. Let’s let science drive this process.”

      5.05pm EDT17:05

      Today so far

      That’s it from me on this very newsy Wednesday. My west coast colleague Maanvi Singh will take over for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:
      Trump acknowledged in March that he was trying to downplay the threat of coronavirus, according to a new book from Bob Woodward. The president told the journalist earlier this year, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump also acknowledged coronavirus was “deadly” and airborne as early as February, while publicly saying the virus would “disappear”.
      Reacting to Woodward’s book, Trump said he “perhaps” misled the country about coronavirus to avoid creating panic. When asked whether he had misled the American public, the president said this afternoon, “Well, I think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so. The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic.”
      Biden accused Trump of betraying the country by downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. Delivering a speech in Warren, Michigan, the Democratic nominee said, “He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. He failed to do his job on purpose … It was a life and death betrayal of the American people.”
      A senior DHS official claimed he was told to stop providing intelligence assessments of Russian election interference. In a new whistleblower complaint, Brian Murphy, the former acting DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, said he was told an “intelligence notification” regarding Russian disinformation should be “held” because it “made the President look bad”. The House intelligence committee has called on Murphy to testify about the allegations later this month.
      Trump released his list of potential future supreme court nominees. The list included three Republican senators: Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. But Hawley and Cruz quickly signaled they did not plan to leave the Senate anytime soon.
      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.12pm EDT

      4.52pm EDT16:52

      The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
      A government watchdog group asked North Carolina officials to investigate a report that Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general, pressured his employees in the private sector to donate to Republican candidates and then reimbursed them through his company. More

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      'Our democracy is deeply imperiled': how democratic norms are under threat ahead of the US election

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      ‘Our democracy is deeply imperiled’: how democratic norms are under threat ahead of the US election

      ‘This is a perfect storm in this country,’ said Vanita Gupta.
      Illustration: Michelle Thompson/The Guardian

      The principals of five major US organizations all feel profound anxiety about the state of the nation under Trump as the US election inches closer
      by Ed Pilkington

      Main image:
      ‘This is a perfect storm in this country,’ said Vanita Gupta.
      Illustration: Michelle Thompson/The Guardian

      Last month Barack Obama returned to the political stage to deliver a speech about the future of the nation. He did it standing in the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia against the backdrop of a facsimile of the US constitution, which was drafted and signed in that city.
      This was not the Obama of old, jacket off, sleeves rolled out, firing rhetorical retorts about hope and change that the world came to know on the campaign trail in 2008. This was a more restrained, somber Obama who barely raised his voice and looked sternly into the camera.
      He talked about how the president of the United States should be “the custodian of this democracy”, and how he had hoped Donald Trump would “discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care, but he never did.”.
      He went on to warn that democratic institutions in America were “threatened like never before”. Addressing weary voters tempted not to bother in November’s presidential poll, he told them that Trump and those “who enable him” were “counting on your cynicism … they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesn’t matter”.
      Then he delivered a coup de grâce: “That’s how a democracy withers, until it’s no democracy at all.”
      Barack Obama would say that, wouldn’t he? His speech was a keynote at the Democratic national convention, delivered in support of his friend and former vice-president, Joe Biden. More

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      Is democracy in America under threat? – podcast

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      As the US election draws closer, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington hears from civil leaders on their fears for the integrity of the process and the future of their democracy

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      When Barack Obama spoke at the Democratic national convention recently he had as his backdrop a facsimile of the US constitution. He spoke pointedly about the importance of that document and criticised Donald Trump, a reality TV star who had damaged the reputation of the United States with “our democratic institutions threatened like never before”. It is a concern shared by many across the US and the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington tells Anushka Asthana that he was alarmed by what he heard in interviews with some of the most prominent figures in civil rights, the law and academia on the state of democracy in America. He spoke to Michael Waldman, the head of the Brennan Center for Justice; Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP; Deirdre Schifeling, the campaign director of Democracy For All 2021; K. Sabeel Rahman, the head of Demos, and Vanita Gupta, the president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. All told him versions of the same story: democracy in America is in peril like never before. More