In the 2024 election, the United States is likely to face more complex threats as adversaries continue to adopt artificial intelligence and other technological advancements to enhance attack capabilities, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned on Thursday.
“The U.S. has confronted foreign malign influence threats in the past, but this election cycle, the U.S. will face more adversaries, moving at a faster pace, and enabled by new technology,” Wray said during an event organized by the nonprofit Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
Wray noted that advances in generative AI have made it easier for both more and less sophisticated foreign adversaries to engage in malign influence, while making foreign-influence efforts by players old and new more realistic and difficult to detect.
“Defending against these evolving threats requires us all to be lashed tightly together to continue hitting these threats together, early and hard,” Wray said, adding that for the FBI that means close collaborations with intelligence professionals.
Wray explained via these collaborations, the FBI would share information this year about threats that it sees. Intelligence professionals will be able to highlight threats in specific, evidence-based ways so that the intelligence community —including the FBI — can usefully arm partners and the public against the kinds of foreign influence operations they’re likely to confront, he said.
“So, while the threats are moving faster and have grown more complex, I’m confident that our partnerships, across the government and the private sector, are better than ever, and that our combat-tempo response to election threats will remain as fast, well-coordinated, and skillful as ever,” Wray said.
The director’s remarks underline a growing chorus of U.S. officials who have warned against digital threats in sometimes hard-to-detect influence operations that are designed to shape public opinion in U.S. elections.
However, despite fears of digital threats to the 2024 election, no evidence of credible threats to U.S. election infrastructure has been found, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
FBI Establishes New Intel Program
In other news, Wray also outlined a new intelligence program strategy at the bureau essential to combatting emerging national security threats.
“At a time when threats are more global and complex than ever before, but our resources are more limited, we have to make the best use of every capability I just described to be successful,” Wray said.
Put simply, the intelligence community needs to reduce risk and maximize advantage, “and that’s why we recently released a new, five-year intelligence program strategy,” he said.
The new five-year strategy will drive the FBI’s intelligence program by leveraging technology, tradecraft, and training to combat the global and complex threats facing the United States. The roadmap — under this program — better positions the FBI to meet its intelligence mission: to identify threats and opportunities, inform decision-making, and avoid surprise.
“It challenges all of us in the FBI, no matter what threat program we focus on, to think differently, work more closely together, and lean into all of our authorities and capabilities,” he said.
In addition, the intel program strategy emphasizes the FBI’s responsibility to deliver exceptional analysis that enables action and provides insights to those who need it and strategically embeds personnel in the places where they can strengthen the connection between FBI intelligence and its consumers, he said.
