U.S. needs to stop Russian electoral interference, NSA’s top civilian leader says

The U.S. government has not figured out how to deter the Russians from meddling in democratic processes, and stopping their interference in elections, both here and in Europe, is a pressing problem, the top civilian leader of the National Security Agency said. The NSA was among the intelligence agencies that concluded that Russian President VladiA mir Putin ordered a cyber-enabled influence campaign in 2016 aimed at undermining confidence in the election, harming Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and helping elect GOP nominee Donald Trump.

Before Trump’s presidency, US privacy board in disarray

In this June 6, 2013 file photo, the sign outside the National Security Administration campus in Fort Meade, Md. A federal oversight board that concluded the NSA's once-secret phone records surveillance program was unconstitutional is in disarray just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Probe of leaked U.S. NSA hacking tools examines operatives’ ‘mistake

A U.S. investigation into a leak of hacking tools used by the National Security Agency is focusing on a theory that one of its operatives carelessly left them available on a remote computer and Russian hackers found them, four people with direct knowledge of the probe said. The tools, which enable hackers to exploit software flaws in computer and communications systems from vendors such as Cisco Systems and Fortinet Inc., were dumped onto public websites last month by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.