Category Archives: influence operations

Mandiant links Belarus to Ghostwriter campaign, which leaked stolen data and pushed disinformation

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The Belarusian government is partially responsible for a years-long influence operation targeting Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, according to research published Tuesday. Operation “Ghostwriter,” a propaganda campaign that has pushed fabricated narratives about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and COVID-19, among other topics, is the work of people in Belarus, including the country’s military, as part of an overall effort to hack and leak information, pollute political discourse with amplified narratives, and collect intelligence, according to the threat intelligence firm Mandiant, which has tracked the group for years. Investigators, including from the European Union, previously suggested that the operation aligned with Russian interests, as the social media campaigns apparently sought to sow mistrust in NATO’s military presence in Eastern Europe, a frequent goal of the Kremlin. The findings show that complex information operations once associated with Russia and China have become more common, Ben Read, director of Mandiant’s cyber espionage team, told […]

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A former top US election official urges sweeping security improvements, warning ‘democracy is in trouble’

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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s former lead election security official is recommending comprehensive changes to protect the ballot in future elections, from physical safety upgrades for election workers and federal agency revamps to mandated disclosure of cyber incidents. A report published Thursday from former CISA election adviser Matt Masterson, who now works for Stanford’s Internet Observatory Cyber Policy Center, is a response to the complications that surrounded the 2020 elections. Namely, 2020 was marred by misinformation that undermined public faith in elections, inconsistent funding to mitigate IT vulnerabilities and threats against election officials, the report concludes. The battle over the 2020 presidential race rages on, with the GOP pushing partisan election reviews in several states despite numerous recounts that concluded with Joe Biden as the victor. “Our democracy is in trouble,” Masterson told CyberScoop. “We are in a downward spiral of distrust of the process. If we don’t make […]

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EU takes aim at Russia over ‘Ghostwriter’ hacking campaign against politicians, government officials

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The European Union formally blamed Russia on Friday, just ahead of this weekend’s German elections, for a hacking campaign targeting EU government officials and politicians. And the EU is threatening to take unspecified action. “The European Union will revert to this issue in upcoming meetings and consider taking further steps,” reads a statement from the high representative of the EU. Known as Ghostwriter, the campaign drawing the EU’s ire has previously taken aim at NATO and launched disinformation efforts as well, according to researchers who have tied its goals to Russian interests but not attributed it to the government. “The European Union and its Member States strongly denounce these malicious cyber activities, which all involved must put to an end immediately,” the EU statement reads. “We urge the Russian Federation to adhere to the norms of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.” The EU says that Ghostwriter targets in its member […]

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Facebook is observing a ‘steady growth’ in disinformation-for-hire services

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Last week Facebook said it removed dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that sought to boost the reelection campaign of Julián Zacarías, the current mayor of the Mexican city of Progreso, and denigrate his opponent, Lila Frías Castillo. The campaign managed several pages and accounts that appeared to be independent local news organizations, when, in fact, they were linked with Sombrero Blanco, a public relations firm in Mexico, and Zacarías himself, according to Facebook’s investigation. The company ultimately conducted a takedown of 44 Facebook accounts, 11 Pages and one Instagram account, adding that the operation had minimal reach. Government-sponsored disinformation campaign operators have long sought to hide their true identities by recruiting writers to publish articles for seemingly legitimate news organizations, or using manipulated photos to lend an air of authenticity to their fake accounts. The National Security Agency and Cyber Command confirmed that the Internet Research Agency, a Russian […]

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Russian agent accused of interfering in US elections is back meddling online, Facebook says

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A man the U.S. intelligence community has assessed is an active Russian agent who interfered in U.S. elections is back stirring the pot on Facebook, the company announced Thursday. But this time, Andriy Derkach and associates appear to have been running influence operations targeted at Ukraine, not the U.S., Facebook said. The Treasury Department previously sanctioned Derkach, whom Treasury identified as being an “active Russian agent for over a decade,” for his alleged interference in U.S. elections. Facebook said it removed the Ukraine-targeted campaign, which used fake accounts and its own websites to amplify its messaging, for violating its coordinated inauthentic behavior policy last month. The campaign, which Facebook first caught onto following a tip from the FBI, focused on Ukraine politics and anti-Russia content. It’s not clear why a reputed Russian agent would circulate anti-Russia materials. The operators used multiple social media platforms and seemingly independent media websites and social […]

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Deepfakes advertised on underground markets, signaling possible shift, Recorded Future says

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Malicious use of manipulated visual and audio files — technology known as deepfakes — is swiftly migrating toward crime and influence operations, according to findings published Thursday. Threat intelligence company Recorded Future pointed to a recent surge in such activities and a burgeoning underground marketplace that could spell trouble for individuals and companies that use tools like facial identification technology as part of multi-factor authentication. The report mirrors similar conclusions from an FBI alert last month warning that nation-backed hackers would themselves begin using deepfakes more frequently for cyber operations as well as misinformation and disinformation. “We believe that threat actors have begun to advertise customized deepfake services that are directed at threat actors interested in bypassing security measures and to facilitate fraudulent activities, specifically fake voices and facial recognition,” the company’s Insikt Group wrote in a blog post. Recorded Future’s work focuses more on that development in the criminal […]

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U.S. intelligence community details destructive cyber capabilities, growing influence threats

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The intelligence community made its most direct public attribution yet that Russia was behind weaving malicious code into a SolarWinds software update to facilitate a sweeping espionage operation, impacting hundreds of companies and U.S. federal agencies. The intelligence community said Russia was behind the software supply chain hack in the intelligence community’s Annual Threat Assessment, which the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released Tuesday. “A Russian software supply chain operation against a US-based IT firm exposed approximately 18,000 customers worldwide, including enterprise networks across US Federal, state, and local governments,” the assessment notes, without naming SolarWinds. The intelligence community under the Trump administration had only previously stated that the operation was “likely” Russian in origin. The publication of the threat assessment coincides with President Joe Biden’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday, during which Biden “made clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of […]

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State prosecutors push Facebook, Twitter to do more to slow virus misinformation

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A group of 12 state attorneys general sent a letter on Wednesday to Facebook and Twitter urging them to do more to curtail vaccine misinformation on their platforms. “Misinformation disseminated via your platforms has increased vaccine hesitancy, which will slow economic recovery and, more importantly, ultimately cause even more unnecessary deaths,” the group of attorneys general state in the letter. The letter sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Wednesday is signed by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia. They note that purveyors of vaccine misinformation have often targeted Black Americans, “members of communities who have suffered the worst health impacts of the virus and whose vaccination rates are lagging.” Bad actors and grifters have been spreading misinformation about vaccines on social media, including on Facebook and Twitter, for years. Some of […]

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Russia, Iran ran influence operations aimed at 2020 elections, US says

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The governments of Russia and Iran sought to influence the U.S. presidential elections in 2020 and exacerbate societal tensions throughout the nation last year, the U.S. intelligence community said in a declassified assessment released Tuesday. The long awaited report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing how foreign governments sought to influence or interfere in U.S. elections declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the influence operations that were aimed at denigrating Joe Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party while supporting then-President Donald Trump. The assessment states that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “probably” authorized Iran’s campaign, which was aimed at undermining Trump’s reelection. Both Russia and Iran intended to undermine public confidence in the electoral process as well, the report states. China did not run influence operations aimed at the U.S. elections, but Chinese authorities had considered doing so, the U.S. intelligence community found. The assessment, which […]

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FBI alert warns of Russian, Chinese use of deepfake content

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The FBI warned in an alert Wednesday that malicious actors “almost certainly” will be using deepfakes to advance their influence or cyber-operations in the coming weeks. The alert notes that foreign actors are already using deepfakes or synthetic media — manipulated digital content like video, audio, images and text — in their influence campaigns. “Foreign actors are currently using synthetic content in their influence campaigns, and the FBI anticipates it will be increasingly used by foreign and criminal cyber actors for spearphishing and social engineering in an evolution of cyber operational tradecraft,” states the alert obtained by CyberScoop. The warning comes amid concern that if manipulated media is allowed to proliferate unabated, conspiracy theories and maligned influence will become more and more mainstream. Lawmakers have recently enacted a series of laws that address deepfake technology, which frequently is used to harass women. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, for […]

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