Russia’s meddling: Well beyond elections; EU counters Putin’s trolls; cyber-conflict’s “trust war,” and more

Contrasting China’s and Russia’s influence operations (Peter Mattis, War on the Rocks)
In a series of presentations, conferences, and phone calls over the last year the discussion of Chinese intelligence and information operations invariably raises the question: “How do the Chinese compare to the Russians?” I have attempted to describe the differences with three distinctions between Russian and Chinese influence operations: set-piece operations vs. playing the man; service-led operations vs. service-facilitated operations; and agents of influence vs. influenced agents.

Russian disinformation campaign has been ‘extremely successful’ in Europe, warns EU (Jon Stone, Independent)
An “orchestrated” propaganda campaign by the Russian government has been “extremely successful” at spreading disinformation throughout the European Union, the European Commission has warned. Julian King, the Commission’s security chief, said the EU had identified “3,500 examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation contradicting publicly available facts repeated in many languages on many occasions.” King said the Russian military viewed information as “another type of armed force” and that the EU would unveil a new strategy for combating fake news in the spring of 2018.

EU names China and Russia as top hackers (Andrew Rettman, EUObserver)
ENISA, the EU Agency for Network and Information Security, said that in 2017 it had encountered a vast diversity of the cyber threats that offered some key insights. “We gained tangible evidence regarding monetization methods, attacks on democracies, cyber-war, transformation of malicious infrastructures and the dynamics within threat agent groups.”

Sweden raises alarm on election meddling (Andrew Rettman and Lisbeth Kirk, EUObserver)
Sweden aims to create a new government agency to protect its upcoming election from Russian and other propaganda.

Facebook to continue its probe into Russian meddling on Brexit (Terry Collins, C|Net)
The social network agrees to reopen its investigation after initially saying it found only a minimal amount of UK-related activity.

Russia closing gap with NATO, top U.S. general in Europe warns (John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes)
NATO’s military edge over Russia could soon be threatened if allies fail to keep adapting, the alliance’s top general warned on Wednesday.

France’s attempt to outlaw fake news raises controversy (AP)
Critics say law is dangerous and could lead to censorship

DHS giving ‘active defense’ cyber tools to private sector, secretary says (Morgan Chalfant, The Hill)
The Department of Homeland Security is providing tools and resources to private companies to engage in “active defense” against cyber threats, its secretary said Tuesday, a practice that has drawn scrutiny from some legal and cybersecurity experts.

Twitter to alert users who saw Russian propaganda during election (Phil McCausland, NBC News)
Have you been the victim of Russian tweet trolls? You may soon find out. A representative for Twitter said in testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday that the social media company would inform users who were exposed to Russian propaganda during the 2016 election.

FBI investigating whether Russian money went to NRA to help Trump (Peter Stone And Greg Gordon, McClatchy)
The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.

Rubio’s push for swift Russia sanctions is latest quiet break from Trump (Alex Daugherty, Miami Herald)
Marco Rubio’s new bill that would swiftly punish Russia for any future election meddling is the latest evidence of a subtle split between the Florida Republican and certain elements of his party who parrot President Donald Trump’s argument that the investigations into Russian meddling amount to a partisan witch hunt.

Google and Twitter face more questions in Washington over Russian interference (Hamza Shaban, Washington Post)Initiatives by Twitter and Facebook are the latest examples of major social-media companies grappling with the fallout of foreign election meddling, attempting to repair their reputations after lawmakers heavily criticized Silicon Valley for allowing its platforms to be widely exploited.

Trust war: Dangerous trends in cyber conflict (Neal A. Pollard, Adam Segal, and Matthew G. Devost, War on the Rocks) For most of cyberspace’s short history, defense analysts, policymakers, and many computer experts have been focused on cyber-attacks that cause physical destruction and death. However, so far, cyber conflict has taken a different path. While the threat to factories, power grids, and refineries remains — and may be growing as more things are connected to the internet — cyber-attacks have generally sought to subvert the integrity of political, social, and economic systems, rather than destroy physical infrastructure. The most prominent operations of the last year — Russian attempts to undermine the 2016 American presidential election through the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the release of emails, and the use of fake Facebook and Twitter accounts — were designed to undermine trust in institutions through manipulation, distortion, and disruption. Cyber-attacks on trust are more worrying than those intended to produce physical effects. Attackers find it easier, and perhaps more effective, to weaken the bonds of a military alliance rather than go after fighter jets, or to corrupt financial data rather than destroy banks’ computers. Cyber-attacks on trust and integrity have a much lower threshold, are harder to detect and deter, and can cascade through interconnected systems.

FBI vets: What many are missing about the infamous ‘dossier’ amid Russia probe (Mike Levine, Newsweek)The unverified nature of the Steele Dossier is precisely why the FBI decided to look into the allegations, rather than accept them as evidence, and why the dossier should not be used to undermine what federal authorities have since uncovered, according to law enforcement veterans. Trump and other Republicans accuse the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller of conducting an investigation based on a “dossier that was all dressed up” and “paid for by the Clinton campaign,” as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), put it during a House hearing in December. Law enforcement veterans say such criticism seems to misunderstand — or deliberately misconstrue — the role that something like the dossier plays in investigations. “They not only misunderstand how these kinds of investigations are conducted, but knowingly attempt to discredit the investigation … by playing on that misunderstanding,” a former U.S. FBI official told ABC News.

Putin, of all people, warns U.S. against election meddling in Russia (Damien Sharkov, Newsweek)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the U.S. not to try to influence the outcome of elections in Russia, where he will fight to secure a fourth term in office. Putin, accused of meddling in the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump—as well as in other polls, such as Britain’s Brexit referendum—made his comments after journalists questioned why Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny would not be on the ballot later this year.

On Donald Trump’s “playbook” and his refusal to commit to an interview with the special counsel (Bob Bauer, Lawfare)
The president’s refusal to commit to an interview with the special counsel comes straight out of his standard playbook.

Secret money: How Trump made millions selling condos to unknown buyers (Thomas Frank, BuzzFeed)

A BuzzFeed News review of every sale of a Trump-branded condominium in the United States provides the first comprehensive look at how many went to unidentified buyers who paid cash, an indication of possible money laundering.

‘Very high level of confidence’ Russia used Kaspersky software for devastating NSA leaks (Michael B. Kelley, Yahoo Finance)
Three months after U.S. officials asserted that Russian intelligence used popular antivirus company Kaspersky to steal U.S. classified information, there are indications that the alleged espionage is related to a public campaign of highly damaging NSA leaks by a mysterious group called the Shadow Brokers.

“That’s a Russian intelligence operation,” a former senior intelligence official, who requested anonymity to speak bluntly, told Yahoo Finance. “They’ve gotten a lot noisier than they used to be.”

Xcel, other utility companies combating heightened possibility of cyberattacks (Mike Hughlett, Star Tribune)
Xcel and other utility companies increase security operations to guard against cyberattacks.

Putin’s new cyber weapon may be GPS spoofing (Bart Marcois, OPSLens)
Imagine the chaos and destruction that can be caused in modern warfare if a guided missile can be misdirected by a false GPS signal.  That may well be the goal of Russian cyber warfare engineers, as they aim to nullify a longtime U.S. advantage. It’s called GPS Spoofing, and it may be about to arrive on the battlefield.

Russians were behind Ukraine hack, CIA finds (Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post)
The CIA has attributed to Russian military hackers a cyberattack that crippled computers in Ukraine last year, an effort to disrupt that country’s financial system amid its ongoing war with separatists loyal to the Kremlin.

France vs. fake news offers test case for democratic dilemma (AP)
French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan for a law against false information around election campaigns is drawing criticism from media advocates, tech experts and others

Cybersecurity: Time for a new definition (Susan Landau, Lawfare)
If there is anything we’ve learned from the Russian cyber activity during the Brexit campaign and the 2016 U.S. and 2017 French presidential campaigns, it’s that our cybersecurity protections are completely unprepared to cope with a disinformation campaign. They, and our policies, were focused on protecting computer systems and their data, not on protecting people’s minds from misinformation planted on networks users relied upon.

The Steele Dossier: Let transparency trump politics (Steven L. Hall, Cipher Brief)
President Donald Trump, concerned that investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections cast doubt over his legitimacy, has consistently dismissed and denigrated such probes. The decision by Dianne Feinstein, as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, to unilaterally release the transcript of closed testimony by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson adds a measure of much-needed transparency in the still-unfolding investigations. A careful—and apolitical–reading of the more than 300 pages sheds light on the work of the political research firm and the credibility of revelations thus far.

Why the president’s FISA fix is bad news for privacy, good news for Russian agents (Patrick Tucker, Defense One)
Early-morning tweets revealed Trump’s complicated relationship with various spying rules. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA law, which was reauthorized last Thursday, will retain a provision that privacy advocates hate. It also means that the intelligence community will find it harder to expose U.S. officials who conduct backroom deals with adversaries because the exposure process will now go through a politically appointed agency head and be saved for five years, possibly allowing political retribution down the line. Had this new “unmasking” policy been in place in December 2016, for example, the Americans probably would not have heard about Michael Flynn’s conversations with Russian officials during the transition period. There would be less public pressure to continue the investigation and Flynn would still probably be Trump’s national security adviser instead of a felon.

Congress tries to cool partisan fever on Russia (Elana Schor, Kyle Cheney, Politico)
After a week of controversy and bitterness, Democrats and Republicans hope to get their investigations into Kremlin meddling on a more collegial track.

A checklist for protecting our elections from foreign meddling (Joshua Geltzer, Just Security)
It’s bigger than Mueller, it’s bigger than collusion, and it’s urgent.

Putin’s trolls are targeting Trump’s GOP critics—especially John McCain (Dennis Clifton, Mother Jones)
Kremlin-linked accounts keep going after the ailing Arizona senator, as well as Mitt Romney, Bob Corker, and others.

Russian military was behind ‘NotPetya’ cyberattack in Ukraine, CIA concludes (Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post)
The CIA has attributed to Russian military hackers a cyberattack that crippled computers in Ukraine last year, an effort to disrupt that country’s financial system amid its ongoing war with separatists loyal to the Kremlin. The June 2017 attack, delivered through a mock ransomware virus dubbed NotPetya, wiped data from the computers of banks, energy firms, senior government officials and an airport.

Countering the growing threat of Russian disinformation in Canada (Marcus Kolga, Toronto Star)
The Russian government is paying off Canada’s largest media companies to expose unsuspecting television subscribers to regime-sponsored disinformation in what amounts to a surreal 24 hour propaganda informercial.

U.S. fails to stand up for democracy in face of Russian online assault (Terri Robinson, SC Magazine)
The Trump administration has failed to take an aggressive stance against Russian interference in democratic processes that have grave implications for the safety and security of the U.S., and thus democracy globally.

The America Europe needs right now is missing (Anne Appelbaum, Washington Post)A new congressional report tells a bleak story of constant, ongoing Russian attempts to disrupt politics and economics in all of the United States’ most important European allies, over many years. The cost to the Russian state is low: The same kinds of conspiratorial material are recycled across the continent, varied slightly to match local tastes, and the costs of purchasing influence and political party funding seem to be borne by private companies…. Very slowly, a part of Europe’s political leadership is beginning to focus on the threat, to allied unity as well as to democracy itself, posed by Russian influence campaigns. But the American leadership that galvanized resistance to fascism and to communism in the past is missing. Not only is there no concentrated, joined-up U.S. policy — the report notes that Rex Tillerson’s State Department has so far stubbornly refused to take this problem seriously, despite congressional demands — there is not even a symbolic push for allied solidarity and democratic values.