{"id":37692,"date":"2018-03-08T14:30:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T03:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=37692"},"modified":"2018-03-05T16:17:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T05:17:26","slug":"cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Each month we learn more and more<\/a> about the extent of Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 US elections. Fraudulent social media accounts accused of propping up non-existent political commentators, armies of Twitter bots designed to cluster around and drive defined political and social issues, carefully crafted \u2018dark posts<\/a>\u2019 that only some could see, and political rallies coordinated by social media event pages<\/a>, all are now standard media fodder.<\/p>\n

This sophisticated covert campaign used disinformation to sow confusion and magnify noise and disagreement. It prodded and promoted a lack of confidence in American leaders and institutions. It did so by taking advantage of the openness of American society\u2014and by leveraging cyberspace in new and creative ways that outpaced and outfoxed government thinking. Given the lack of response<\/a> from the US government during (and immediately following) the elections, and the seeming lack of awareness in media that events were being manipulated, it\u2019s fair to say few understood the magnitude of what was tearing down the pipeline.<\/p>\n

At an estimated cost of US$1.25 million a month<\/a>\u2014chump change for most developed countries\u2019 intelligence services\u2014the operation was a steal for the Russian government. (If you haven\u2019t already done so, do read Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s 37-page indictment<\/a> of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities, including the Internet Research Agency<\/a>).<\/p>\n

While international media remains focused on Russian influence operations in the US and Europe\u2014Sweden is the lates<\/a>t to prepare for possible election meddling\u2014it\u2019s important to note that covert cyber-enabled influence operations take place around the world, including in the Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

In the Philippines, for example, media and academia have tracked how President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s \u2018keyboard trolls\u2019 spread and amplify messages in support of his policies through a combination of social media bots and fake accounts<\/a>. Parts of this domestically focused operation appear to be coming straight from the president\u2019s office. A 2017 Oxford paper<\/a> claimed that Duterte\u2019s office had a budget of US$200,000 and employed 400\u2013500 people to promote the president and defend him from online criticisms.<\/p>\n

One operation that Australia\u2019s national security community should watch closely is being investigated in Taiwan. Taipei\u2019s District Prosecutors\u2019 Office alleges that the Chinese government has been running a multi-year operation<\/a> \u2018aimed at infiltrating the military through obtaining confidential information from digital networks and databases, deepening existing contacts, holding military-related events and filing academic research reports\u2019.<\/p>\n

Apparently conducted through the Chinese government\u2019s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), the operation involved financing pro-unification propaganda website FIRE New<\/a>s and then using the website\u2019s Facebook page to recruit contacts, ideally senior military contacts<\/a>. It\u2019s been reported that TAO paid FIRE News\u2019 administrators A$130 for every new Facebook like (as long as that user liked and read at least 70% of the page\u2019s content). It offered A$220 for each Facebook user who interacted with the creators of the page at least once every two weeks for a minimum of two months. If offline meetings were secured with contacts (this had to be proved with photographs), A$435 was up for grabs.<\/p>\n

A reward of A$2,180 was given if during these two-person exchanges the Facebook user opened up about their politics and personal feelings. If someone made it to this stage of the operation, it\u2019s alleged that they were told to immediately get in touch with TAO for further instructions.<\/p>\n

We could view this operation as stock-standard human intelligence collection\u2014recruiting agents to recruit agents. But it\u2019s actually a two-for-one hybrid operation. We have an Avon\/Amway-style<\/a> espionage operation fused with a cyber-enabled influence operation (taking place through both the website and attached Facebook page). Compared with Russia\u2019s activities in this space, this operation was quieter (until it was discovered of course) and the approach appeared to be tilted towards long-term gain rather than short-term outcomes.<\/p>\n

While this is one of the more interesting influence operations we are aware of in Asia, it\u2019s only one case study we can learn from. Start scratching the surface of content farms\u2014particularly in how they\u2019re deployed<\/a> against Taiwan<\/a>\u2014and we can glean insights into the types of information-warfare tactics being used in our region.<\/p>\n

For Australia, it\u2019s essential that we keep an eye on such influence operations occurring closer to home, particularly as we move towards our next national election. That\u2019s a topic I\u2019ll tackle in my next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each month we learn more and more about the extent of Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 US elections. Fraudulent social media accounts accused of propping up non-existent political commentators, armies of Twitter bots designed to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":691,"featured_media":37694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[391,749],"class_list":["post-37692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-cyber","tag-cyber-espionage"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Each month we learn more and more about the extent of Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 US elections. Fraudulent social media accounts accused of propping up non-existent political commentators, armies of Twitter bots designed to ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-08T03:30:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-03-05T05:17:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/E-recruitment-e1520225117953.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"479\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Danielle Cave\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Danielle Cave\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/E-recruitment-e1520225117953.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/E-recruitment-e1520225117953.png\",\"width\":640,\"height\":479},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/\",\"name\":\"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia | The Strategist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-08T03:30:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-05T05:17:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/1730ec525f034baa16dd911fea57775f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/1730ec525f034baa16dd911fea57775f\",\"name\":\"Danielle Cave\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0eb0eb0ac065aaf45b63a5b7a87b53d7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0eb0eb0ac065aaf45b63a5b7a87b53d7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Danielle Cave\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/danielle-cave\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia | The Strategist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia | The Strategist","og_description":"Each month we learn more and more about the extent of Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 US elections. Fraudulent social media accounts accused of propping up non-existent political commentators, armies of Twitter bots designed to ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/","og_site_name":"The Strategist","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org","article_published_time":"2018-03-08T03:30:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-03-05T05:17:26+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":479,"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/E-recruitment-e1520225117953.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Danielle Cave","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ASPI_org","twitter_site":"@ASPI_org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Danielle Cave","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/","name":"The Strategist","description":"ASPI's analysis and commentary site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/E-recruitment-e1520225117953.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/E-recruitment-e1520225117953.png","width":640,"height":479},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/","name":"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia | The Strategist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2018-03-08T03:30:48+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-05T05:17:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/1730ec525f034baa16dd911fea57775f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-enabled-information-influence-operations-not-just-russia\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cyber-enabled information and influence operations\u2014it\u2019s not just Russia"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/1730ec525f034baa16dd911fea57775f","name":"Danielle Cave","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0eb0eb0ac065aaf45b63a5b7a87b53d7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0eb0eb0ac065aaf45b63a5b7a87b53d7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Danielle Cave"},"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/danielle-cave\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37695,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37692\/revisions\/37695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}