Foreign threats to U.S. elections are growing, and officials are increasingly moving to expose them

Officials say the U.S. electoral system is so secure that no foreign country can alter the results on the scale necessary to change the outcome. Nevertheless, authoritarian adversaries have used disinformation and cyberespionage to target campaigns and voters, while stoking distrust and discord.

Here’s what you need to know with the upcoming presidential elections:

Russia is the most active and sophisticated nation in manipulating the U.S. election, using fake websites, state-controlled media and unwitting Americans to spread misleading and polarizing content designed to undermine confidence in the election.

The Kremlin’s disinformation apparatus focuses on controversial issues such as immigration, crime, the economy and disaster relief. The goal is to weaken the United States, reduce support for Ukraine in the fight against Russian invaders and reduce America’s ability to counter Russia’s growing ties to China, North Korea and Iran, officials say.

Intelligence officials and private security analysts have determined that Russia supports former President Donald Trump and uses disinformation — sometimes generated by artificial intelligence — to smear his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested cutting funds to Ukraine and repeatedly criticized the NATO military alliance.

In one particularly audacious campaign, Russia produced a video years ago falsely accusing Harris of paralyzing a woman in a car accident. Another video made fictitious allegations against Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

On Friday, the FBI confirmed Moscow’s role in creating a third video allegedly showing the destruction of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. Local election officials quickly debunked the video as false.

Russia has also tried to pay American influencers who spread the Kremlin’s preferred narratives. Last month, U.S. authorities accused two employees of Russian state media of giving $10 million to a Tennessee company to create pro-Russian content. The company then paid several popular right-wing influencers who stated they had no idea their work was supported by Russia.

Moscow’s campaign will not end on election day. Instead, intelligence officials and private security analysts predict that Russia will use claims of election irregularities to suggest that the results cannot be trusted. A recently declassified intelligence memo suggests that Russia may also be encouraging violent post-election protests.

“Putin’s goal is to create chaos, division and polarization in our society,” said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who now teaches at Stanford University.

Russia rejected claims that it wanted to influence the US elections. A message left with the Russian embassy in Washington was not immediately returned Saturday.

Iran has proven to be a particularly brazen participant in foreign interference this year.

She is accused of hacking into Trump campaign associates and offering stolen communications to media organizations and Democrats in hopes of breaking damaging stories that could hurt the Republican’s prospects. Emails containing dirty information were sent to people associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign, but there is no indication that anyone responded, officials say.

Last month, the Justice Department indicted three Iranian hackers who remain at large, accusing them of a multi-year operation that targeted a wide range of victims.

U.S. officials described the hack as part of a broader effort to interfere in the election, which Iran sees as particularly important. They claim Iran has made clear its opposition to the Trump campaign. His administration ended the Iran nuclear deal, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, prompting Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.

In addition to cyber operations, U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed concern about Iran’s potential to carry out violence on U.S. soil against Trump or other members of his administration. In 2022, officials brought charges in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill Trump national security adviser John Bolton, and this year they charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a plot to commit political assassinations in the U.S., including potentially Trump.

Leaders in Tehran may also try to encourage violent protests after the elections, according to a declassified intelligence memo. Authorities say Iran secretly financed and supported U.S. protests over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Iranian authorities rejected allegations that the country was trying to influence the elections. Iran’s mission to the United Nations issued a statement this week saying: “Iran has no motive or intention to interfere in the U.S. elections.”

U.S. intelligence officials believe China is taking a more neutral stance in elections and is focusing on lower-vote races, targeting candidates from both parties based on their positions on issues key to Beijing, including support for Taiwan.

But the Chinese government has been running a sophisticated hacking operation for years that targets every way of life and industry in the West, and it goes far beyond electoral influence.

“From the city council to the president, they want access,” said Adam Darrah, a former CIA political analyst and now vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm ZeroFox, which tracks foreign Internet threats.

News broke on Friday that Chinese hackers, as part of a much broader espionage effort, had attacked cellphones used by Trump, his running mate J.D. Vance and people associated with the Harris campaign. It was not immediately clear what data, if any, was accessed.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said they were not familiar with the details and could not comment on the situation, but said China regularly falls victim to cyberattacks and opposes such actions.

Hardly. Foreign adversaries, including the same ones currently accused of meddling, have tried to interfere in the last few election cycles – with varying degrees of success.

But the U.S. government, blamed for sitting on information about the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election, has worked this year to aggressively tout foreign threats as part of an effort to limit their influence and reassure Americans that the election is secure.

In 2016, Russian military intelligence officials hacked into the email accounts of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic Party and published tens of thousands of messages in an attempt to boost the effectiveness of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Russia also engaged in a massive but covert social media trolling campaign this year aimed at sowing discord on pressing social issues, creating division in the US electoral process and damaging Clinton’s presidential bid.

The antics continued in the 2020 election cycle when a Ukrainian lawmaker, described by U.S. officials at the time as an “active Russian agent,” released audio recordings of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

That same year, Iranian hackers were indicted over emails purportedly from the far-right group The Proud Boys, which officials said were intended to harm Trump’s candidacy.