Collaborate Disseminate
Sen. Mark Warner discussed American intelligence successes and information warfare at a Washington think tank Monday.
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In recent days, social media companies have gotten more active in stemming the flow of official Russian propaganda, as well tackling sneakier efforts to spread disinformation about Ukraine. The steps follow pressure from policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere for social media companies to counter narratives from Russia as it conducts its military offense. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said Monday that it had removed about 40 accounts based out of Russia and Ukraine posing as legitimate news sources, which were pushing the narrative that the West had betrayed Ukraine and that Ukraine was a failed state. It also said it had taken steps to counter hacking threats to Facebook members from Ghostwriter, a suspected Russia- and Belarus-linked disinformation and hacking operation. Also Monday, Twitter said it would add labels to accounts sharing links to Russian state-affiliated media outlets, and was “taking steps to significantly reduce the […]
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In recent days, social media companies have gotten more active in stemming the flow of official Russian propaganda, as well tackling sneakier efforts to spread disinformation about Ukraine. The steps follow pressure from policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere for social media companies to counter narratives from Russia as it conducts its military offense. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said Monday that it had removed about 40 accounts based out of Russia and Ukraine posing as legitimate news sources, which were pushing the narrative that the West had betrayed Ukraine and that Ukraine was a failed state. It also said it had taken steps to counter hacking threats to Facebook members from Ghostwriter, a suspected Russia- and Belarus-linked disinformation and hacking operation. Also Monday, Twitter said it would add labels to accounts sharing links to Russian state-affiliated media outlets, and was “taking steps to significantly reduce the […]
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Dear blog readers,I’ve decided to take a deeper look inside the currently ongoing cyber war between Russia and Ukraine and I’ve decided to provide actionable intelligence on the online whereabouts and actual campaign infrastructure behind the currently… Continue reading The Cyber War Between Russia and Ukraine – An OSINT Analysis
On July 24, 2021 a Swiss biologist, Wilson Edwards, claimed on Facebook and Twitter that the United States was pressuring the World Health Organization to blame the origin of COVID-19 on the Chinese government. Within an hour, Chinese officials were promoting the message on social media, using the apparent claim to turn public opinion against the U.S. after China attracted scrutiny for reportedly rejected further investigation into the origins of the virus. But Wilson Edwards wasn’t real, the Swiss Embassy in Beijing announced on Twitter on August 10. Instead, the ruse was a part of an elaborate coordinated campaign based in China to discredit the U.S., researchers at Meta, which is owned by Facebook, revealed in a report out Wednesday. What researchers found was a “hall of mirrors,” Ben Nimmo, global information operations threat intelligence lead at Facebook said in the report. In total, Facebook removed 524 Facebook accounts, 20 pages, […]
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Hundreds of fake Twitter accounts targeted opposition candidates and urged citizens not to vote in an upcoming Honduran presidential election, according to research published Wednesday. The 317 accounts appear to be part of an effort to influence the Nov. 28 Honduran presidential election by denigrating two of opposition candidates running against the incumbent National Party of Honduras’ candidate, Nasry Asfura, according to Nisos, the threat intelligence firm that published its findings Wednesday. The network of profiles in some cases used authentic photos from Peruvian Facebook accounts in an attempt to aid legitimacy, some cases apparently using computer-generated images as avatars. Twitter removed the accounts in November upon learning of the inauthentic behavior observed by Nisos. The company did not respond to questions prior to press time. The influence operation would be just the latest example of coordinated inauthentic political messaging on social media in Honduras and its regional neighbors. A […]
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Pro-China operatives behind an effort to cast a negative light on the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic tried using social media to promote a street demonstration earlier this year, according to findings released Wednesday by the intelligence firm Mandiant. As a part of ongoing research into suspected Chinese influence operations, investigators discovered a network of fake accounts spamming Twitter and other platforms in April with posts calling for Asian Americans to protest racial discrimination in New York City. The effort was an “early warning” that China is getting bolder in how it attempts to influence politics outside of its borders, says John Hultquist, vice president of threat intelligence at Mandiant, a division of FireEye. “The intent is what worries me here because they’re already trying to cross the serious line of getting people on the street,” said Hultquist. Mandiant did not definitively attribute the effort to the Chinese government. […]
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A Russia-based disinformation push about COVID-19 vaccines wasn’t a traditional “influence” campaign, so much as it was partially a campaign on “influencers.” The subsidiary of a U.K.-registered marketing firm behind the effort, named Fazze, tried to spoon-feed popular accounts on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube a package of articles and instructions about the Pfizer vaccine, claiming that it obtained information about fatalities following a hack-and-leak operation. Instead, as Facebook outlined in a Tuesday report detailing the campaign, some of those influencers thought the offer was fishy and exposed it on social media. The campaign against Pfizer that began in May traced its beginnings back to November and December of 2020, with the first leg devoted to bashing the AstraZeneca vaccine. Its primary targets were India and Latin America, but to a smaller extent the United States, Facebook said. Facebook said it removed 243 Instagram accounts and 65 Facebook accounts from Russia […]
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The U.S. on Tuesday seized more than two dozen websites for allegedly violating sanctions and spreading disinformation on behalf of the Iranian government. The Department of Justice said Iran’s Islamic Radio and Television Union controlled 33 websites, months after the U.S. issued sanctions against the same organization for what officials described as spreading disinformation meant to influence Americans’ opinions prior to the presidential election in 2020. Press TV, Iran’s state-owned news broadcaster, and three other sites that the U.S. said are connected to Kata’ib Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization, also broadcast messages saying the Justice Department had taken control of the domains. In what seems to be a coordinated action, a similar message appears on the websites of Iranian and regional television networks that claims the domains of the websites have been “seized by the United States Government.” pic.twitter.com/JloU56LvpL — Press TV (@PressTV) June 22, 2021 The Treasury Department issued […]
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Facebook is still struggling to rein in COVID-19 misinformation in Spanish, a recent report from the advocacy group Avaaz indicates. Avaaz, a global human rights group, looked at top-performing posts on the platform promoting a debunked viral claim the coronavirus will make patients’ arms magnetic because it contains metals or possibly a microchip. Of the 30 posts in Spanish, only one had received a fact-checking label as of June 14. In comparison, roughly half of the 47 high-performing English posts had a fact-checking label. One post flagged by the group showed a woman placing a magnet on her arm, claiming that it stuck to the site where she received her vaccine injection. The post, which racked up tens of thousands of views, has been removed by Facebook. Facebook employs third-party organizations to fact-check its content. If a post receives a fact-checking label as false, it’s deprioritized in the user’s feed. […]
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