BY TIMOTHY
The Soviet Union as well as straightaway Russian Federation nether Vladimir Putin get got waged a political ability struggle against the West for nearly a century. Spreading mistaken as well as distorted information–called dezinformatsiya after the Russian give-and-take for “disinformation”–is an age-old strategy for coordinated as well as sustained influence campaigns that get got interrupted the possibility of level-headed political discourse. Emerging reports that Russian hackers targeted a Democratic senator’s 2018 reelection campaign advise that what happened inwards the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election may live on laid to recur.
As an ethical hacker, safety researcher as well as information analyst, I get got seen firsthand how disinformation is becoming the novel focus of cyber attacks. In a recent talk, I suggested that cyber warfare is no longer merely nigh the technical details of estimator ports as well as protocols. Rather, disinformation as well as social media are chop-chop becoming the best hacking tools. With social media, anyone–even Russian intelligence officers as well as professional person trolls–can widely let on misleading content. As legendary hacker Kevin Mitnick pose it, “it’s easier to manipulate people rather than technology.”
Two sets of federal indictments–one inwards Feb as well as some other inwards July–allege inwards exceptional how a someone fellowship linked to Putin as well as the Russian military machine itself worked to polarize American political discourse as well as sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Cybersecurity experts inwards the U.S. knew that the Russian intelligence agencies were conducting these acts of information warfare as well as cyber warfare, but I uncertainty they had whatever thought how comprehensive as well as integrated they were–until now.
RUSSIA’S PROPAGANDA MACHINE DUPED AMERICAN VOTERS
The performance was complex. What is publicly known straightaway is peradventure most easily understood inwards 2 pieces, the subjects of carve upward federal indictments.
First, a billionaire Russian human of affairs as well as Putin associate allegedly assembled a network of troll factories: someone Russian companies engaging inwards a massive disinformation campaign. Their employees posed equally Americans, created racially as well as politically divisive social media groups as well as pages, as well as developed faux tidings articles as well as commentary to ready political animosity within the American public.
Second, the Russian military machine intelligence agency, known past times its Russian acronym equally the GRU, allegedly used coordinated hacking to target to a greater extent than than 500 people as well as institutions inwards the United States. The Russian hackers downloaded potentially damaging information as well as released it to Earth via WikiLeaks as well as nether diverse aliases including “DCLeaks” as well as “Guccifer 2.0.”
The people involved did non stand upward for the stereotypical motion painting of network trolls. One leading Russian troll manufactory was a company called the Internet Research Agency, reportedly alongside all the trappings of a existent corporation, including a graphics subdivision to practise incendiary images, a unusual subdivision dedicated to next political discourse inwards other countries as well as an information technology subdivision to brand certain trolls had reliable computers as well as network connections. Employees, generally xviii to twenty years old, were paid equally much equally US$2,100 a month for creating faux social media accounts as well as blogs to distribute disinformation to Americans.
They were employed to accept wages of deepening political polarization inwards the U.S. The Russians saw this equally an chance to stir upward conflict–like poking a stick into a beehive. These trolls were instructed to stir upward racial tensions, phase “flash mobs” as well as organize activist campaigns–sometimes announcing events for opposing groups at the same times as well as locations.
One ex-troll told a Russian independent TV network that his project included writing incendiary comments as well as creating faux posts on political forums: “The way you lot chose to stir upward the situation, whether it was commenting [on] the tidings subdivision or on political forums, it didn’t actually matter.” In 2015, good earlier the 2016 election, the troll-factory network had more than 800 people doing this form of work, producing propaganda videos, infographics, memes, reports, news, interviews as well as diverse analytical materials to persuade the public.
America never stood a chance.
An interview alongside an ex-Russian troll.
FOCUSING ON SOCIAL MEDIA
It’s no surprise that these Russian trolls spent most of their fourth dimension on Facebook as well as Instagram: Two-thirds of Americans larn at to the lowest degree some tidings on social media. The trolls spread out across both platforms, seeking to encourage conflict on whatever topic that was getting a lot of attention: immigration, religion, the Black Lives Matter motility as well as other hot-button issues.
When describing how he managed all of the faux social media accounts, the ex-troll said: “First, you lot gotta live on a redneck from Kentucky, thus you lot demand to live on a white guy from Minnesota, you’ve slaved away all your life as well as paid your taxes, as well as thus xv minutes later on you lot are from New York posting inwards some Black slang.”
Then, the indictments reveal, the GRU entered this increasingly fraught online political discourse.
THE GRU JOINS IN
Like another pregnant political scandal, the GRU assay allegedly started alongside a break-in to Democratic National Committee records–but this fourth dimension it was a digital burglary. It wasn’t specially sophisticated, either, using 2 mutual hacking techniques: spearphishing as well as malicious software.
As the July indictment details, starting inwards March 2016, Russian military machine operatives sent a serial of faux emails, disguised to hold off real, to to a greater extent than than 300 people associated alongside Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. One of the targets was Clinton crusade chairman John Podesta, who cruel for the scheme as well as unwittingly handed over to a greater extent than than 50,000 emails to the Russians.
Around the same time, the Russian hackers allegedly began searching for technical vulnerabilities inwards the Democratic organizations’ estimator networks. They used techniques as well as specialized malicious software that Russians had used inwards other hacking efforts, including against the German Parliament as well as the French idiot box network TV5 Monde. By Apr 2016, the hackers had gained access to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee systems, exploring servers as well as secretly extracting sensitive data. They located a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee staffer who also had privileges inwards the Democratic National Committee systems, as well as thereby got into the Democratic National Committee networks too, extracting to a greater extent than information.
When the Democratic National Committee realized at that topographic point was unusual information traffic inwards its systems, the grouping hired a someone cybersecurity firm, which inwards June 2016 publicly announced that its investigation had concluded that Russia was behind the hacking. At that point, the Russians allegedly tried to delete traces of their presence on the networks. But they kept all the information they had stolen.
OPPOSING HILLARY CLINTON
As early on equally Apr 2016, the GRU was allegedly trying to role the Democrats’ confidential documents as well as e-mail messages to stir upward political problem inwards the U.S. There is show that the Russian government, or people acting on its behalf, offered cardinal people inwards the Trump crusade damaging information on Clinton.
In July 2016, the indictments say, the GRU began releasing many of the Democrats’ documents as well as e-mail messages, mainly through WikiLeaks, an network site dedicated to the anonymous publishing of hush-hush information.
All of this assay was, according to the indictments, laid upward to undermine Hillary Clinton inwards the eyes of the American public. Putin definitely wanted Trump to win–as the Russian president himself acknowledged piece standing side past times side to Trump inwards Helsinki inwards July. And the trolls were instructed to become after her savagely: A one-time Russian troll said, “Everything nigh Hillary Clinton had to live on negative as well as you lot actually had to tear into her. It was all nigh the leaked email, the corruption scandals, as well as the fact that she is super rich.”
The indictments depict inwards exceptional how information warfare as well as cyber warfare were used equally political tools to advance the interests of people inwards Russia. Something similar may live on set to take away house inwards 2018, too.
Timothy Summers is Director of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, as well as Engagement, College of Information Studies, University of Maryland. This story originally appeared at The Conversation.
Buat lebih berguna, kongsi:
