Outgoing US President Barack Obama has ordered a review of election-season cyberattacks, including the email hacks that rattled the presidential campaign and raised fresh concerns about Russia's meddling in the polls.
According to the White House, the review, led by intelligence agencies, will be a ‘deep dive’ into a possible pattern of increased malicious cyber activity timed to the campaign season.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said that the review will look at the tactics, targets, key actors and the US government's response to the recent email hacks, as well as incidents reported in past elections.
"The President has directed the Intelligence Community to conduct a full review of what happened during this year's election process. It is to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders," White House Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism Adviser Lisa Monaco said on Friday.
Monaco said that the administration would be mindful of the consequences of revealing the results of their review publicly, and Schultz said they will make public "as much as we can".
All of the Democratic senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee have called on Obama to declassify intelligence on Russia's actions during the November 8 election.
"You want to do so very attentive to not disclosing sources and methods that would impede our ability to identify and attribute malicious actors in the future," Monaco said of disclosure.
The review is intended to be done before Trump's inauguration on January 20.
"He expects to get a report prior to him leaving office," Monaco said.
Russia denies hacking claims
In response to the news, the Russian government called for evidence of its involvement, denying claims made by the US.
"We are also very interested in understanding what they accused Russia of," Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"Many times Foreign Minister Lavrov have asked Americans to provide full information. But never had any response," Zakharova added.
The US government even before the election publicly had blamed the Russian government for cyberattacks designed to influence the outcome, including hacks of Democratic groups like the Democratic National Committee.
