Considered opinionRussia breaks into U.S. soldiers' iPhones in apparent hybrid warfare attacks

By Joseph Trevithick

Published 6 October 2017

The U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, in charge of finding ways to counter emerging threats, recently issued warning about the dangers of Russia’s hybrid warfighting concepts, saying that the U.S. military as a whole may be ill-suited to respond to them in a crisis. Now, American troops and troops from NATO member states say they have been subjected to a campaign of surveillance and harassment via their cellphones, the internet, and social media, a campaign which is the hallmark of the “Russian New Generation Warfare.”

The U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, in charge of finding ways to counter emerging threats, recently issued warning about the dangers of Russia’s hybrid warfighting concepts, saying that the U.S. military as a whole may be ill-suited to respond to them in a crisis. Now, American troops and troops from NATO member states say they have been subjected to a campaign of surveillance and harassment via their cellphones, the internet, and social media, a campaign which is the hallmark of the “Russian New Generation Warfare.”

Joseph Trevithick writes in The Drive that the soldiers’ reports match up almost word for word with information the Asymmetric Warfare Group collected regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The unit explained in its December 2016 handbook on Russian New Generation Warfare that the hybrid strategy had effectively blended electronic and cyber warfare with psychological operations to disrupt Ukrainian military activities.

Trevithick continues:

“Electronic warfare devices allow Russian Forces to broadcast … messages directly against opposing Ukrainian forces as discussed earlier with cellular text messages,” the manual explained. “These can be very specific and directed at individuals, such as by threatening their wives and children by name, or generic and sent to entire units as was the case in Ukraine.”

Kremlin-backed forces in Ukraine even coupled these unconventional assaults with conventional military operations. The Asymmetric Warfare Group described one instance where separatists, undoubtedly with Russian support, zeroed in on a Ukrainian position possibly by pinpointing its radio transmissions, hit it with artillery, then sent texts asking to their opponents “asking how they liked” the barrage.

Off the battlefield, armed with information scraped from phones and social media, Russia could make things especially personal, sending Ukrainian soldiers “text messages on their phone with threats against their families and accurate information of family locations,” according to the handbook. “Tactics such as this can have a tremendously negative psychological impact on young soldiers that are out of direct contact with their loved ones.”

The Asymmetric Warfare Group warned in the handbook that the potential for these problem was only likely to increase given that the incoming generation of American military personnel were “truly ‘digital natives’” who have spent their entire lives interaction with the internet and social media. The U.S. military would have to learn to balance this reality with the obvious need for operational security.

“Digital operational security violations now have strategic-level implications,” the unit’s handbook noted. “Never before has the actions of one lone individual been so visible and prone to manipulation by the adversary.”

….

The U.S. military itself also appears to be taking an increasingly active role in attempting to counter Russian cyber warfare and propaganda campaigns in Europe. In June 2016, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command revealed the existence of two forward-deployed special operations headquarters in Europe in a double issue of the official Special Warfare magazine.

Among possible other duties, the two units, on for Eastern Europe and on for Southern Europe, were running “influence and information activities designed to prevent or end conflict and to counteract threats facing the U.S. and our allies,” according to one article. “PSYOP [psychological operations] soldiers are involved in every aspect of regional special operations forces … initiatives,” it added.

As of 2016, according to the Asymmetric Warfare Group’s handbook, the Army’s main command in Europe was running a media campaign to apply a “Pinocchio Scale” to Russian media reports akin to The Washington Post’s Fact Checker. “It is never an easy task,” the manual conceded.

Easy or not, the Army and other services will have to incorporate more and better procedures to protect against Russian cyber and electronic harassment, or the potential for worse during an actual crisis. At the moment, it looks as if NATO personnel, including American troops, may already be active targets in one of Russia’s hybrid warfare campaigns.

Read the full article: Joseph Trevithick, “Russia Breaks into U.S. Soldiers’ iPhones in Apparent Hybrid Warfare Attacks,” The Drive (4 October 2017)