{"id":4398,"date":"2024-07-10T12:21:09","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T17:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/cloud-security\/feds-uncover-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm"},"modified":"2024-07-10T12:21:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T17:21:09","slug":"feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/2024\/07\/10\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds Uncover Sprawling, GenAI-Enabled Russian Troll Farm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eu-images.contentstack.com\/v3\/assets\/blt6d90778a997de1cd\/blta0c9dcb50922e7e2\/668ec2f4792bbed0b59dd5dd\/russia_1800_vchal_alamy.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\"><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">The Justice Department has announced the seizure of two domain names as well as nearly 1,000 social media accounts used by <\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"><a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/threat-intelligence\/russia-cyber-operations-summer-olympics\" rel=\"noopener\">Russian actors<\/a><\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"> to create and spread disinformation in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\"><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">US agencies including the FBI and Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), alongside agencies in Canada and the Netherlands, released a <\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"><a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ic3.gov\/Media\/News\/2024\/240709.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\">joint advisory<\/a><\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"> detailing the influence operation and the technology used, revealing an GenAI-enhanced, social media-focused <\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"><a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/cyberattacks-data-breaches\/bot-attacks-from-middle-east-and-africa-increased-last-year\" rel=\"noopener\">bot farm<\/a><\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"> used to support Russian government objectives.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\"><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">According the advisory, affiliates of Russia Today, a Russian state-sponsored media organization, used Meliorator, an AI-enhanced software package, to create online personas reflecting varying people of different nationalities to post disinformation regarding countries that include the US, Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\"><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">Meliorator&nbsp;is capable of creating authentic-looking social media profiles, mimicking realistic social media content, mirroring disinformation of other bots, automatically perpetuating false narratives, and formulating messages based on the type of bot using it. The authoring agencies are urging social media companies to identify this kind of troll activity to help reduce the volume of Russia&#8217;s disinformation campaigns.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\"><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">&#8220;Today&#8217;s actions represent a first in disrupting a <\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"><a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/threat-intelligence\/openai-disrupts-5-ai-powered-state-backed-influence-ops\" rel=\"noopener\">Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced<\/a><\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"> social media bot farm,&#8221; <\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"><a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/justice-department-leads-efforts-among-federal-international-and-private-sector-partners\" rel=\"noopener\">FBI Director Christopher Wray said<\/a><\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">. &#8220;Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical <\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\"><a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/threat-intelligence\/russia-cyber-operations-summer-olympics\" rel=\"noopener\">narratives favorable to the Russian government<\/a><\/span><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\"><span class=\"ContentText ContentText_variant_bodyNormal\" data-testid=\"content-text\">The social media accounts that were used were registered using private email servers that depended on the two domain names that the FBI was able to seize. Social&nbsp;media platform X has suspended the remaining bot accounts that were identified in court documents, due to violations of the terms of service.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/cloud-security\/feds-uncover-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Justice Department has announced the seizure of two domain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-4398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dark-reading"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1465&ssl=1",2560,1465,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C172&ssl=1",300,172,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=640%2C367&ssl=1",640,367,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=640%2C366&ssl=1",640,366,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=1536%2C879&ssl=1",1536,879,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=2048%2C1172&ssl=1",2048,1172,true],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C586&ssl=1",1024,586,true],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?resize=825%2C575&ssl=1",825,575,true],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?resize=590%2C410&ssl=1",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Dark Reading","author_link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/author\/darkreading\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/category\/uncategorized\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/feds-uncover-sprawling-genai-enabled-russian-troll-farm-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1465&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}