Obama said he confronted Putin over hacking of Democratic Party

Local cyber expert says there is no ‘silver bullet’ to deal with online threats

President Barack Obama suggested strongly on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin knew about the email hackings that roiled the U.S. presidential race, and he urged his successor, Republican Donald Trump, to back a bipartisan investigation into the matter.

“Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin,” Obama said in his year-end news conference. The president said he had warned Putin there would be serious consequences it he did not “cut it out,” though Obama did not specify the extent or timing of any U.S. retaliation for the hacking, which many Democrats believe contributed to Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

“Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us because we can do this to you,” Obama said.

The president also expressed bewilderment over Republican lawmakers and voters alike who now say they approve of Putin, declaring, “Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave.”

The Russians allegedly hacked the Democratic National Committee and a top Clinton campaign manager, John D. Podesta, with the intent to release internal emails in an attempt to influence the American election in favor of Trump, according to media reports.

Trump has dismissed recent talk about hacking and the election as “ridiculous.”

Clinton has even more directly cited Russian interference with the election. She said Thursday night, “Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyber attacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me.”

Obama said Friday U.S. officials have found no evidence of vote tampering in the election.

No ‘silver bullet’

A cyber researcher says the nation has no “silver bullet” to prevent cyber hacking, such as reported in the 2016 election, but it must be vigilant and respond if Russia is behind the intrusion.

“I don’t think it reaches the threshold of cyber warfare in a conventional warfare sense, but I do think we need to take the claims very seriously because if true than they are interfering with our government processes and our democratic form of government,” said Rusty Baldwin, director of research at the Riverside Research’s Cyber Center of Excellence in Beavercreek.

RELATED: FBI backs CIA conclusion on Russian hacking motive

The cyber hacking claims led to calls in Congress for a bipartisan probe based on the CIA conclusions of Russian involvement in the American political process and Obama has ordered U.S. intelligence leaders to review and release the findings of an investigation before he leaves the White House on Jan. 20.

“When you’re touching one of the fundamental functions of this government it seems to me … that requires some kind of reaction that makes it clear we are not happy with this,” said Susan W. Brenner, a University of Dayton law professor who authored, “Cyberthreats: The Emerging Fault Lines of the Nation State. “

“People, companies, government agencies … do not realize that there is an outsider that can penetrate their systems pretty much anytime they want,” she said.

Initial media reports indicated the FBI expressed doubt about the CIA’s findings, but The Washington Post reported Friday FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper agreed with the CIA assessment Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has denied reported claims it too was hacked.

A Russian spokesman dismissed campaign hacking allegations as “nonsense,” according to the Associated Press.

Trump, who publicly claimed the election was rigged before Election Day, said in the midst of the campaign Russia should hack his Democratic opponent. He criticized Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for using a private server for her emails while she was secretary of state.

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” from Clinton’s cache of emails, he reportedly said at a news conference in July. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Most recently, Trump said claims Russia interfered in the campaign were “ridiculous.”

“If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” Trump tweeted this week.

But officials say the issue was brought to the forefront months ago in media reports and by DNI Clapper in October prior to the Nov. 8 general election.

Tracking a hacker

John S. Hermes, a cyber security consultant to the Advanced Technical Intelligence Center in Beavercreek, said he didn’t see “the Russian hacking as being terribly effective towards the election,” but he was concerned Trump was being “dismissive” of intelligence agencies findings on cyber intrusions.

“I’m concerned that Donald Trump is not trusting his cyber security experts because when (someone) says there is no way you can know who’s hacking you that’s an extremely naive thing to say,” he said. “It is true on the surface, however as a cyber security investigator you have access to information that a normal person wouldn’t have. You would be able to plant bugs in your target that you could monitor what they’re doing to prove they’re the ones that broke in.”

One cyber security expert said tracking the perpetrator of a cyber intrusion is difficult while the threat has grown.

“I think we’ve been seeing an increasing interest by nation states and large criminal organizations over the last 10 years and with increasing interest and amount of funding that goes into these activities and it’s something that the United States has got to be working on and prepared for in the future,” said John Rosenstengel, president and CEO of Beavercreek-based Redwall Technologies, a cyber security firm that protects mobile devices.

“It’s going to be very hard to tell what country, if any, was really doing wide scale attack of any type but clearly somebody got in and got information they shouldn’t have and from that standpoint you don’t have to be a nation state to do that,” he said.

Claims of foreign meddling in the campaign prompted some members of the Electoral College to ask for an intelligence briefing before they cast a ballot for president Dec. 19.

Lee Hannah, a Wright State University assistant professor of political science, said two questions are unanswered: Did the Russians have information on the Republican Party that they withheld and did Trump or anyone on his campaign know what was happening?

“That would make it much more clear that Russia influenced the election,” he said.

“I think a big thing to watch is the Republicans in Congress and will they break from Trump to investigate it,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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