State Department Employee With Same Name as Alleged Election Hacker 1 of Only 10 Out of More Than 2,000 to Graduate with Elite Cyber Security Degree

An ITN analysis finds a State Department employee with the same name as a person at the center of accusations of election hacking was one of only ten employees to graduate the National Defense University with an advanced cybersecurity degree.

A man by the name of Stefano Serafini is accused of being one of the individuals that facilitated the hacking of the presidential election on Nov. 3. That hack allegedly switched votes electronically from President Trump to Joe Biden and took place at – among other sites – the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy.

Those allegations, made by Maria Zack of Nations In Action, a government accountability group, also say Serafini, a 25-year veteran of the State Department, retired shortly before Election Day in order to protect his pension.

An individual named Stefano Serafini was read into the Congressional record in 1997 as having entered the foreign service at the U.S. State Department. That would have put that individual at the 23-year mark of service last year.

An individual with that same name also graduated from the elite National Defense University with a concentration in Cybersecurity Leadership in 2017. The discipline trains graduates in advanced cybersecurity functions such as risk analysis, security incident management, continuity of operations, and disaster recovery.

That record is of note as State Department employees are the minority of graduates from NDU. According to NDU’s website, its mission is to train “warfighters in critical thinking and the creative application of military power,” and as such traditionally attracts members of U.S. military branches as well as foreign militaries.

According to an ITN analysis out of 2,045 students to graduate NDU in the years 2017, 2018 and 2020, Serafini is one of only ten State Department employees to do so with the advanced cybersecurity degree.

(ITN has reached out to NDU for data on additional years and will update this posting accordingly if we receive it.)

The choice of such a cybersecurity degree is perhaps more unusual if the individual were planning on retiring soon after attaining it.

A Facebook page lists the following photo for a Stefano Serafini:

A photo from the 2017 NDU commencement ceremony seems to show the same individual (without the beard and sunglasses) accepting his degree:

ITN has not confirmed that the person entered into the Congressional record in 1997 is the same person who graduated NDU in 2017. And repeated attempts to simply confirm whether a Stefano Serafini is still employed by the State Department or has retired have been ignored.

We will update these postings once we receive answers (whether they confirm or dispute our findings) to these inquiries

Zack told ITN this week that she is working with individuals in the government to bring the truth on the election interference to light and is looking to let the “chips fall where they may.”

“I’m happy to report, yes we have gotten heard for my last appeal of requesting help. There are people who are trying to look into all of the pieces. I will not name names or agencies but I’m very excited about the recent turn of events of assistance that we are receiving,” Zack said.

Main Photo by APK via Wikimedia Commons