The Russia-linked affect operation known as Doppelganger has focused Ukrainian, U.S., and German audiences by a mixture of inauthentic information websites and social media accounts.
These campaigns are designed to amplify content material designed to undermine Ukraine in addition to propagate anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, U.S. army competence, and Germany’s financial and social points, in keeping with a brand new report shared with The Hacker Information.
Doppelganger, described by Meta because the “largest and essentially the most aggressively-persistent Russian-origin operation,” is a pro-Russian community recognized for spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda. Energetic since not less than February 2022, it has been linked to 2 firms named Structura Nationwide Applied sciences and Social Design Company.
Actions related to the affect operation are recognized to leverage manufactured web sites in addition to these impersonating genuine media – a method known as brandjacking – to disseminate adversarial narratives.
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The newest campaigns are additionally characterised by way of superior obfuscation strategies, together with “manipulating social media thumbnails and strategic first and second-stage web site redirects to evade detection, and the doubtless use of generative synthetic intelligence (AI) to create inauthentic information articles,” the cybersecurity agency mentioned.
The findings display Doppelgänger’s evolving ways and throw gentle on the usage of AI for info warfare and to supply scalable affect content material.
The marketing campaign focusing on Ukraine is claimed to encompass greater than 800 social media accounts, along with banking on first and second-stage domains to hide the true vacation spot. A few of these hyperlinks additionally use the Keitaro Visitors Distribution System (TDS) to assess the general success and effectiveness of the marketing campaign.
One of many notable points of the U.S. and German campaigns is the usage of inauthentic media retailers reminiscent of Election Watch, MyPride, Warfare Insider, Besuchszweck, Grenzezank, and Haüyne Scherben that publish malign content material as unique information and opinion retailers.
“Doppelgänger exemplifies the enduring, scalable, and adaptable nature of Russian info warfare, demonstrating strategic endurance aimed toward step by step shifting public opinion and habits,” Recorded Future mentioned.
It is price stating that Meta, in its quarterly Adversarial Risk Report revealed final week, mentioned it additionally discovered a brand new cluster of internet sites linked to Doppelganger which are geared in the direction of U.S. and European political affairs, reminiscent of migration and border safety.
“Their newest internet content material seems to have been copy-pasted from mainstream U.S. information retailers and altered to query U.S. democracy and promote conspiratorial themes,” Meta mentioned, highlighting Election Watch as one of many U.S.-focused websites.
“Quickly after the Hamas terrorist assault in Israel [in October 2023], we noticed these web sites start posting concerning the disaster within the Center East as a proof of American decline; and not less than one web site claimed Ukraine provided Hamas with weapons.”
Meta additionally mentioned it took steps to disrupt three separate covert affect operations – two from China and one from Russia – in the course of the third quarter of 2023 that leveraged fictitious personas and media manufacturers to focus on audiences in India and the U.S., and share content material about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It, nevertheless, famous that proactive menace sharing by the federal authorities within the U.S. associated to international election interference has been paused since July 2023, reducing off a key supply of knowledge that could possibly be helpful to disrupt malicious international campaigns by refined menace actors.
