The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) highlighted North Korea, the Syrian conflict, cyber issues, and terrorism in a report delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday.
DNI Director Daniel Coats said North Korea’s nuclear program, public threats, confrontational posturing, cyber activities, and more “pose a complex and increasingly grave national security threat to the United States and its interests,” in a report made as part of his prepared statements at a committee hearing.
Although the hearing was planned to be an overview of global threats with testimony from the leaders of major intelligence agencies, it was overshadowed with questions regarding President Trump’s recent firing of FBI Director James Comey.
In his place, Acting Director and former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe responded to many questions regarding the FBI investigation of Russia’s interference with the 2016 election and possible connections between members of Trump’s campaign and the Russia.
McCabe stated he had not talked to anyone in the White House about the investigation, will not provide them with updates on the investigation, and will come to the committee if the investigation experiences any political interference form the administration.
The DNI’s written report noted North Korea’s 2016 level of testing and displays of strategic weapons show the Kim Jong-un regime is intent on proving the capability to hit the U.S. mainland with nuclear weapons. Despite several failures, the ballistic missile tests “probably shortened North Korea’s pathway toward a reliable ICBM, which largely uses the same technology.”
Coats also said the country is set to conduct its first ICBM flight test this year, based on public comments that preparations to do so are nearly ready and would serve as a milestone as a threat to the U.S. He highlighted in the hearing that North Korea’s “enshrinement of the possession of nuclear weapons in its constitutions, while repeatedly stating that nuclear weapons are the basis for its survival, suggests Kim does not intend to negotiate them away at any price.”
Coats also said the intelligence community (IC) assesses the Syrian regime, with Russian and Iranian backing, will maintain its momentum on the battlefield, although neither it nor the opposition are likely to agree on a political settlement this year. He also noted the IC assesses the Syrian government used sarin, a nerve agent, in an attack on the opposition in Khan Shaykhun on April 4.
This attack led to the Trump Administration launching 59 Raytheon [RTN]-built Tomahawk land-attack missiles at the Syrian airfield from which the chemical attack was launched (Defense Daily, April 11).
The report assesses that Syria has not declared all of the elements of its chemical weapons program to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and has the ability to conduct future attacks. It also assesses non-state actor like ISIS are also using chemical weapons as a means of warfare. It specifically notes that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (OPCW-UN JIM) concluded ISIS used sulfur mustard in a 2015 attack.
The DNI also expanded on global cyber threats to the U.S., first noting Russia in the report.
Moscow has a highly advanced offensive cyber program, and in recent years, the Kremlin has assumed am ore aggressive cyber posture,” evident in efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. election, the report said. “We assess that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized the 2016 US election-focused data thefts and disclosures, based on the scope and sensitivity of the targets,” the report added.
The report noted in some cases Russian intelligence actors have “masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack” and sought to influence public opinion across Europe and Eurasia.
The DNI said the IC believes China will also continue to actively target the U.S. government, its allies, and U.S. companies for cyber espionage. However, it said cyber activity aimed at the U.S. private sector is occurring at volumes significantly lower than before the bilateral Chinese-US cyber commitments of September 2015” (Defense Daily, Sept. 25, 2015).
The report says Iran and North Korea both continue to leverage cyber threats to the U.S. and its allies, referencing the Iranian intrusions into a U.S. dam’s industrial control system (ICS), Iranian data deletion at a casino, the North Korean attack on Sony Corp. [SNE], and South Korean suggestion North Korea was probably responsible for the compromise and disclosure of data from a nuclear plant in 2014.
The DNI also highlighted the dangers of vulnerabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) devices for use in distributed denial-of service (DDoS) attacks and the psychological consequences of the target. These threats “distort the perceptions and decisionmaking processes of the target, whether they are countries or individuals, in way that are both obvious and insidious.”
The report said information taken from espionage “can be leaked indiscriminately or selectively to shape perceptions.”
The Worldwide Threat Assessment also touched on Russia’s development of ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) that the U.S. says violate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, continued Chinese modernization of its nuclear missile force to ensure the viability of its strategic deterrent for a second-strike capability, continuing space industry expansion, and Russian and Chinese perceptions they need to offset U.S. advantages from space systems with anti-satellite capabilities.