![]() learned its democracy could be hacked started with loose lips. Like many a good spy tale, the story of how the U.S. Uncovering “signals that indicate a particular handle is a state-sponsored account is really, really difficult,” says Jared Cohen, CEO of Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which tackles global security challenges. Eager to appear more powerful than they are, the Russians would consider it a success if you questioned the truth of your news sources, knowing that Moscow might be lurking in your Facebook or Twitter feed. One problem: the fear of Russian influence operations can be more damaging than the operations themselves. and its allies are only just beginning to figure out how to fight back. In another case, officials say, Russia created a fake Facebook account to spread stories on political issues like refugee resettlement to targeted reporters they believed were susceptible to influence.Īs Russia expands its cyberpropaganda efforts, the U.S. social media group by pretending to be a 42-year-old American housewife and weighing in on political debates with specially tailored messages. In one case last year, senior intelligence officials tell TIME, a Russian soldier based in Ukraine successfully infiltrated a U.S. But as they have investigated the Russian 2016 operation, intelligence and other officials have found that Moscow has developed sophisticated tactics. Whether and how much they have actually been able to change Americans’ behavior is hard to say. The Russians “target you and see what you like, what you click on, and see if you’re sympathetic or not sympathetic,” says a senior intelligence official. That is what Moscow is doing, more than a dozen senior intelligence officials and others investigating Russia’s influence operations tell TIME. Propagandists can then manually craft messages to influence them, deploying covert provocateurs, either humans or automated computer programs known as bots, in hopes of altering their behavior. Other algorithms can determine those groups’ hot-button issues and identify “followers” among them, pinpointing those most susceptible to suggestion. ![]() American researchers have found they can use mathematical formulas to segment huge populations into thousands of subgroups according to defining characteristics like religion and political beliefs or taste in TV shows and music. When clicked, the links took users to a Russian-controlled server that downloaded a program allowing Moscow’s hackers to take control of the victim’s phone or computer–and Twitter account. Depending on the interests of the targets, the messages offered links to stories on recent sporting events or the Oscars, which had taken place the previous weekend. The report said the Russians had sent expertly tailored messages carrying malware to more than 10,000 Twitter users in the Defense Department. Now the Russians were running a more sophisticated hack on Twitter. It described how Russia had already moved on from the rudimentary email hacks against politicians it had used in 2016. But the report in early March was something new. and suburban Virginia, they had created massive wall charts to track the different players in Russia’s multipronged scheme. ![]() For months, American spy hunters had scrambled to uncover details of Russia’s influence operation against the 2016 presidential election. counterintelligence officials in Washington. On March 2, a disturbing report hit the desks of U.S. ![]()
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