The Department of Homeland Security has worked with Facebook, for example, to combat influence operations (also known as information operations), but adversaries are modifying their behavior in response, according to Nielsen.
“I think the nation-states have become aware of that [work], so what they are doing now is they will take otherwise legitimate content by a non-nation-state actor, and then they will amplify it in a way to continue that conversation,” she said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
Ahead of the midterm elections on Tuesday, Nielsen highlighted the department’s work since 2016 to make election infrastructure more secure from hackers. Election officials have many more security clearances, for example, and there is now a threat-sharing hub specific to the election industry.
