U.S. intelligence agencies are not the only ones who say Russian influence operations against the United States continue. On January 31, Twitter extended its purge of “potential information operations” by announcing the deletion of
- 418 Russian accounts
- 2,617 Iranian accounts
- 1,196 Venezuelan accounts
Twitter’s actions are a snapshot of the information warfare battlefield.
From Russia, online operatives seek to delegitimize enemies of President Putin, at home and abroad. In Iran, hackers attack the Western financial institutions the enforce U.S. sanctions and Israeli targets, including the personal account of Eli Cohen, chief of Mossad. In Venezuela both pro- and anti-government forces weaponize social media in an increasingly turbulent struggle for power.
The Russian effort may not be as sophisticated as some Americans imagine, writes Russian journalist Masha Gessen in the New Yorker. But it is persistent.
One of Twitter’s prime targets is the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based troll farm, also targeted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller. In February 2018, Mueller indicted IRA’s financier Yevgeny Prighozin, a billionaire mercenary and troubleshooter for President Vladmir Putin, along with 11 other IRA employees.
More recently, Mueller filed a motion in federal court accusing a management consultant firm retained by IRA of leaking discovery materials to Russian hackers.
Does the IRA continue to mount influence operations in the United States?
Yoel Roth, chief of site integrity for Twitter, said
Through ongoing analyses and investigations, we continue to build on our contextual understanding of these networks of accounts to improve our ability to find and suspend this activity as quickly as possible in the future. This is particularly vital as groups such as the IRA evolve their practices in response to industry-wide suspension efforts.
Those looking for definitive findings will be disappointed. Russian hackers are elusive.
We cannot render definitive attribution to the IRA for these accounts, although most appear to originate in Russia, and much of the behavior mimics the activity of prior accounts tied to the IRA.
Source: Empowering further research of potential information operations
