2016 Russian cyberattack on Ukraine intended to cause far more damage than it did. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/new-clues-show-how-russias-grid-hackers-aimed-for-physical-destruction/ ANDY GREENBERG, WIRED.COM –  9/14/2019, 8:15 AM For nearly three years, the December 2016 cyberattack on the Ukrainian power grid has presented a menacing puzzle. Two days before Christmas that year, Russian hackers planted a unique specimen of malware in the network of Ukraine’s […]Read More

Our Take The widely varying disclosure standards set by social media companies in some ways serve to confuse the general public, warned Director Laura Rosenberger in an interview with OpenSecrets. One of the goals of the Chinese Community Party’s disinformation campaigns on Twitter is to control the conversation surrounding the Hong Kong protests, China Analyst Matthew Schrader told the New York […]Read More

A Newsletter of Political Warfare, Influence, and Information Campaigns from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University China Stepping Up to China’s Political Warfare | Patrick M. Cronin | The Hill China Used Twitter To Disrupt Hong Kong Protests, But Efforts Began Years Earlier | Daniel Wood, Sean McMinn, & Emily Feng | NPR Russia EPP: Russian Regime Is […]Read More

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1863/CMKI_Development_Framework_.pdf In alignment with the National Security Strategy, our mission to help governments, civil society and the private sector in our partner countries on their Journey to Self-Reliance, and the Congressionally- established Countering Russian Influence Fund, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching our framework for Countering Malign Kremlin Influence (CMKI). The United […]Read More

Indiana University, September 12 2019 https://news.iu.edu/stories/2019/09/iub/releases/12-botslayer-launch.html BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media has launched a new tool in the fight against online disinformation: BotSlayer. The software, which is free and open to the public, scans social media in real time to detect evidence of automated Twitter accounts — or “bots” — pushing messages in a […]Read More

Present Realities and Emerging Trendsby Michael Mazarr, Abigail Casey, Alyssa Demus, Scott Harold, Luke Matthews, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, James Saddenhttps://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2713.html The role of information warfare in global strategic competition has become much more apparent in recent years. Today’s practitioners of what this report’s authors term hostile social manipulation employ targeted social media campaigns, sophisticated forgeries, cyberbullying and harassment […]Read More

Our TakeChinese information operations are a significant, growing threat to Western democracies, as well as social media platforms that remain vulnerable to manipulation by foreign actors seeking to interfere in democratic debate, argued Co-Directors Zack Cooper and Laura Rosenberger in the Washington Post. It is very likely that narratives promoted by Russia Today are seeping into the Australian information […]Read More

A Newsletter of Political Warfare, Influence, and Information Campaigns from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University China Beijing’s Computational Propaganda Goes Global: The Significance of China’s Debut as a Disinformation Actor | Nick Monaco | Medium   US Backs Taiwan Against Beijing’s Fake News War | KG Chan | Asia Times  Russia Kremlin Disinformation Campaigns Could Target Canada’s Federal […]Read More

A Newsletter of Political Warfare, Influence, and Information Campaignsfrom the Pell Center at Salve Regina University DeepFakes Cyber Criminals Have Defrauded Companies with Deepfakes | Ryan Duffy | Morning Brew An Artificial-Intelligence First: Voice-Mimicking Software Reportedly Used In A Major Theft | Drew Harwell | The Washington Post 2020 Election Disinformation & The 2020 Election | Paul M. Barrett | NYU Stern – […]Read More

From the Alliance for Securing Democracy https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/ New interactive tool tracks official Russian messaging and information manipulation The Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States launched Hamilton 2.0, a new dashboard tracking Russian government-backed information operations online and on state-sponsored broadcast television. The interactive, publicly accessible dashboard captures content from more than […]Read More