Story highlights Officials reiterated that the US is still working to get its arms around the problem

Public trust is key, and what Russia is seeking to undermine, they said

Boston (CNN) The US government should have anticipated Russia's efforts to meddle in the 2016 elections -- but the FBI is nevertheless working to make sure Russia "pays" for its actions, bureau officials said Wednesday.

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said Moscow's efforts were surprising "in some ways," but that the intelligence community had enough information to have foreseen extensive efforts by Russian-government linked hackers and operatives to influence the 2016 election.

"The fact is, the Russians have been targeting us with everything they have over the last 50 years," McCabe said. "We sort of should have seen this coming."

McCabe was speaking at the Cambridge Cyber Summit, held by CNBC and the Aspen Institute, on a wide-ranging panel about the cybersecurity threat. The admission follows repeated statements from the intelligence community reaffirming the assessment a year ago that the Russian government was involved in various attempts to influence the election, including by releasing damaging emails about Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Russian meddling is the subject of a special counsel investigation by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, which McCabe said the FBI is assisting where it can, and investigations in the House and Senate.

Without getting into specifics about what activities the FBI sees currently, McCabe implied that the meddling hasn't stopped.

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