US President Barack Obama
ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and
foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report
before he leaves office on January 20, homeland security adviser
Lisa Monaco said on Friday.
Monaco told reporters the results of the report would be
shared with lawmakers and others.
"The president has directed the intelligence community to
conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election
process ... and to capture lessons learned from that and to
report to a range of stakeholders, to include the Congress,"
Monaco said during an event hosted by the Christian Science
Monitor.
Monaco said cyber attacks were not new but might have
crossed a "new threshold" this year.
When she was working as a senior FBI official in 2008, she
said, the agency alerted the presidential campaigns of
then-Senator Obama and Republican Senator John McCain that China
had infiltrated their respective systems.
"We've seen in 2008 and in this last election system
malicious cyber activity," Monaco said.
In October, the US government formally accused Russia of a
campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organisations
ahead of the November 8 presidential election.
Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin
about consequences for the attacks.
Asked if Republican President-elect Donald Trump's
transition team was not concerned enough about Russia's
influence on the election or about other threats to the United
States such as infectious disease outbreaks, Monaco said it was
too soon to say.
As a presidential candidate, Trump praised Putin and called
on Russia to dig up missing emails from his opponent, Hillary
Clinton, from her time as secretary of state under fellow
Democrat Obama.
