Analysing Multidisciplinary Approaches to Fight Large-Scale Digital Influence Operations

Crime as a Service CaaS has evolved from isolated criminal incidents to a broad spectrum of illicit activities, including social media manipulation, foreign information manipulation and interference FIMI, and the sale of disinformation toolkits. This article analyses how threat actors exploit...

Bulletproof Host Stark Industries Evades EU Sanctions

In May 2025, the European Union levied financial sanctions on the owners ofStark Industries Solutions Ltd. , a bulletproof hosting provider that materialized two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine and quickly became a top source of Kremlin-linked cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. But ne...

Elevating Cyber Threat Intelligence against Disinformation Campaigns with LLM-Based Concept Extraction and the FakeCTI Dataset

The swift spread of fake news and disinformation campaigns poses a significant threat to public trust, political stability, and cybersecurity. Traditional Cyber Threat Intelligence CTI approaches, which rely on low-level indicators such as domain names and social media handles, are easily evaded ...

Iranian and Russian Entities Sanctioned for Election Interference Using AI and Cyber Tactics

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC on Tuesday leveled sanctions against two entities in Iran and Russia for their attempts to interfere with the November 2024 presidential election. The federal agency said the entities – a subordinate organization of Iran's Islam...

Why your vote can’t be “hacked,” with Cait Conley of CISA (Lock and Code S05E23)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … The US presidential election is upon the American public, and with it come fears of "election interference." But "election interference" is a broad term. It can mean the now-regular and expected foreign disinformation campaigns that are launched to sow...

Talk of election security is good, but we still need more money to solve the problem

Last week, six Secretaries of State testified to U.S. Congress about the current state of election security ahead of November's Presidential election. Some of the same topics came up as usual -- disinformation campaigns, influence from foreign actors, and the physical protection of poll workers o...

Paris Olympics 2024: Securing The Games

The Rising Cyber Threats In recent years, the threat of cyberattacks has grown exponentially, affecting the sports sector as well. Major international events like the Olympics are prime targets for cybercriminals, hacktivists, and even nation-states. The reasons are clear: these events attract...

OpenAI, Meta, and TikTok Crack Down on Covert Influence Campaigns, Some AI-Powered

OpenAI on Thursday disclosed that it took steps to cut off five covert influence operations IO originating from China, Iran, Israel, and Russia that sought to abuse its artificial intelligence AI tools to manipulate public discourse or political outcomes online while obscuring their true identity...

Examples of Cyber Warfare #TrendTalksBizSec

Cyber Warfare has been a topic of discussion for years but has reached a new level of prominence in this age of hyper-connected critical infrastructure. Our Trend Micro experts touch on this evolution, disinformation campaigns, and cyber mercenaries...

Fronton IOT Botnet Packs Disinformation Punch

A fresh look at the Fronton DDoS-focused botnet reveals the criminal tool has more capabilities than previously known. The Fronton botnet first made the headline in March 2020. That is when, according to news reports, a hacktivist group called Digital Revolution said it obtained documents claimin...

Anti-war open-source software developer targets Russians and Belarussians with “protestware”

Russia is in the midst of its fourth week of attack against Ukraine. People worldwide have been increasingly and passionately showing support for Ukrainians since day one while condemning the atrocities of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian military, and Belarus, its allied country...

A week in security (February 28 – March 6)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Beware of malware offering “Warm greetings from Saudi Aramco” Update now! Cisco fixes several vulnerabilities HermeticWiper: A detailed analysis of the destructive malware that targeted Ukraine Tips to protect your data, security, and privacy from a hands-on expert...

Meta blocks Russia-Ukraine disinformation campaigns on Facebook, Instagram

Meta says it has detected and removed two disinformation campaigns regarding the current Russia-Ukraine war. These campaigns, it says, were run by groups in Russia and Ukraine to target Ukraine users. In the post, Nathaniel Gleicher, Metas head of security policy, and David Agranovich, Metas...

FBI Releases PIN on Potential Cyber Activities During the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI has released a Private Industry Notification PIN to warn entities associated with the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and March 2022 Paralympics that malicious cyber actors could use a broad range of cyber activities to disrupt these events. These...

Halloween News Wrap: Zombie Bugs, Hospital Deaths and Other Scary Cyberattack Stories

This Halloween week, Threatpost editors discuss the spookiest security stories, including: A wave of ransomware attacks targeting a number of hospitals, sparking worries about healthcare security and the impact on patients during COVID-19 “Zombie” vulnerabilities – including Zerologon and SMBGhos...

Cybercriminals Step Up Their Game Ahead of U.S. Elections

With the U.S. presidential elections a mere few weeks away, the security industry is hyper-aware of security vulnerabilities in election infrastructure, cyberattacks against campaign staffers and ongoing disinformation campaigns. Past direct hacking efforts, such as the attack on the Democratic...

What to expect when you're electing: How election officials can counter disinformation

By Matthew Olney and the communications and public relations professionals at Cisco. Editor's Note: For more on this topic, sign up for a Cisco Duo webinar on election security on Oct. 15 at 1 p.m. ET here. In our work with our partners in the election security space, the most difficult question...

What to expect when you’re electing: Voter recommendations

By Amy Henderson. Information operations have been around for millennia, yet with the advent of the internet and the democratization of content creation, the barriers to entry have lowered to a point that anyone can play now. In the course of our latest research on disinformation, with an eye...

The Election Threats That Keep US Intelligence Up at Night

Government officials have increasingly sounded alarms on the risks of foreign interference and disinformation campaigns leading up to—and after—November 3...

Roundtable video: Disinformation and election security

By Jon Munshaw. In our continued coverage of election security, we decided to sit down with four Talos and Cisco researchers to discuss disinformation. As we outlined in our recent research paper, disinformation is one of the cornerstones of threat actors' efforts to disrupt the American election...