The Disinformation Warning Coming From the Edge of Europe

Moldova is facing a tide of disinformation unprecedented in complexity and aggression, the head of a new center meant to combat it tells WIRED. And platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and YouTube could do more...

OpenAI Blocks 20 Global Malicious Campaigns Using AI for Cybercrime and Disinformation

OpenAI on Wednesday said it has disrupted more than 20 operations and deceptive networks across the world that attempted to use its platform for malicious purposes since the start of the year. This activity encompassed debugging malware, writing articles for websites, generating biographies for...

AI and the 2024 US Elections

For years now, AI has undermined the public's ability to trust what it sees, hears, and reads. The Republican National Committee released a provocative ad offering an "AI-generated look into the country's possible future if Joe Biden is re-elected," showing apocalyptic, machine-made images of...

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...

U.S. Seizes 32 Pro-Russian Propaganda Domains in Major Disinformation Crackdown

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Wednesday announced the seizure of 32 internet domains used by a pro-Russian propaganda operation called Doppelganger as part of a sweeping set of actions. Accusing the Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaign of violating U.S. money...

Iranian cybercriminals are targeting WhatsApp users in spear phishing campaign

An Iranian state-sponsored group often referred to as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC is making headlines again this season as Meta disclosed that the cybercriminals targeted WhatsApp users in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the UK, and the US. Other names for this group—depending on the...

The top stories coming out of the Black Hat cybersecurity conference

Over the next two weeks, two of the largest cybersecurity conferences in the world will take place in Las Vegas: Black Hat and DEF CON. That means product announcements, buzzwords and stories about "X smart appliance could burn your house down!" or something like that. Over the next two weeks, Il...

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...

U.S. Seizes Domains Used by AI-Powered Russian Bot Farm for Disinformation

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ said it seized two internet domains and searched nearly 1,000 social media accounts that Russian threat actors allegedly used to covertly spread pro-Kremlin disinformation in the country and abroad on a large scale. "The social media bot farm used elements of AI...

HUMINT in a cyber world

TL;DR HUMINT / Human Intelligence is gathered from a person in the location in question. It’s the sort of information we think of in the context of spying. A modern intelligence apparatus is multi-discipline with many different collection methods. HUMINT sources include officers, agents, diplomat...

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...

Hacktivist Groups Target Indian Elections, Leak Personal Data, Says Report

By Deeba Ahmed Multiple independent hacktivist groups are targeting India's elections with influence campaigns, Resecurity reports. The campaigns are designed to sway voters' opinions and undermine trust in the democratic process. Learn more about the tactics being used and how to protect yoursel...

Deepfakes and AI-Driven Disinformation Threaten Polls

Cheap and easy access to AI makes it harder to detect state-sponsored and homegrown campaigns during this election year...

Could the Brazilian Supreme Court finally hold people accountable for sharing disinformation?

If youre a regular reader of this newsletter, you already know about how strongly I feel about the dangers of spreading fake news, disinformation and misinformation. And honestly, if youre reading this newsletter, I probably shouldnt have to tell you about that either. But one of the things that...

Finland Blames Chinese Hacking Group APT31 for Parliament Cyber Attack

The Police of Finland aka Poliisi has formally accused a Chinese nation-state actor tracked as APT31 for orchestrating a cyber attack targeting the country's Parliament in 2020. The intrusion, per the authorities, is said to have occurred between fall 2020 and early 2021. The agency described the...

Meta to abandon social media tracking tool CrowdTangle

On 14 March, Meta announced it would abandon CrowdTangle, saying the tool will no longer be available after August 14, 2024. While most people have never heard of CrowdTangle, among journalists the tool is considered essential. Its popularity largely depends on the ability to monitor social media...

U.S. Sanctions Russians Behind 'Doppelganger' Cyber Influence Campaign

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC on Wednesday announced sanctions against two 46-year-old Russian nationals and the respective companies they own for engaging in cyber influence operations. Ilya Andreevich Gambashidze Gambashidze, the founder of the Moscow-base...

Unmasking Doppelgänger: Russia’s Disinformation Campaign Revealed

Summary: Doppelgänger, a suspected Russia-aligned influence operation network targeting German audiences with propaganda and disinformation, potentially aiming to sway opinions ahead of elections. Doppelgänger employs coordinated social media activities and a dynamic infrastructure to maximize it...

TikTok’s latest actions to combat misinformation shows it’s not just a U.S. problem

When we talk about the term "fake news," most people likely picture a certain person who made the term infamous. And when we talk about misinformation and disinformation, many will remember the "Russian troll farms" that popped up during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and were unmasked and...

Russian Hackers Target Ukraine with Disinformation and Credential-Harvesting Attacks

Cybersecurity researchers have unearthed a new influence operation targeting Ukraine that leverages spam emails to propagate war-related disinformation. The activity has been linked to Russia-aligned threat actors by Slovak cybersecurity company ESET, which also identified a spear-phishing campai...