Foreign adversaries seeking to sway next week’s election and influence the outcome of the presidential race are targeting “every American” in their efforts, a former Department of Homeland Security official warned Thursday.

Suzanne Spaulding, who led the predecessor organization under DHS, which later became the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said nations including Russia and Iran are stepping up their operations because the US election is an existential issue for their position on the world stage.

“We are the target, and Americans should not take that lightly,” Spaulding, now a senior homeland security adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a the electoral security committee at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank based in Washington, DC. “(Americans) should demand that policymakers have a vigorous response to counter this activity.”

Efforts to disrupt foreign elections accelerated in the weeks and months leading up to the November 5 presidential election. These have been led by Russia, Iran and China, the last two of which have successfully compromised tangible material confidential data or communications of the two major presidential campaigns that are locked in the national polls.

Russia, meanwhile, led the way complex and prolonged disinformation campaigns to influence Americans in favor of voting for former President Donald Trump, according to information assessments.

Opponents will probably amplifies Disinformation campaigns about election results after Nov. 5 and may focus on domestic efforts to encourage physical violence between next month and Inauguration Day in January, officials warned last week.

“Americans should have confidence in the legitimacy of the (election) process and the security of the process, and that’s an important role that CISA plays,” Spaulding said. “CISA makes it very clear that Americans should look to authoritative sources, and to me, those are sources with first-hand information” about developments, she said, encouraging Americans to lean on local officials administering elections next week.

CISA Director Jen Easterly said Wednesday that the agency “has seen no evidence that foreign adversaries have penetrated our election infrastructure,” a statement that aligns with previous public assessments by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.