Tainted Leaks – Widespead Russia’s disinformation campaign hit 39 Countries

Researchers at Citizen Lab documented a Russia’s campaign of cyberespionage and disinformation that leveraged tainted leaks.

According to the researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a Russian disinformation campaign targeted 39 countries.

The cyber attacks against the DNC were part of a larger campaign orchestrated by a nation state actor against government, military and industry targets, journalists, academics, opposition figures, and activists.

“Our report uncovers a major disinformation and cyber espionage campaign with hundreds of targets in government, industry, military and civil society. Those targets include a large list of high profile individuals from at least 39 countries (including members of 28 governments), as well as the United Nations and NATO.” wrote lead researcher Ronald Deibert.” Although there are many government, military, and industry targets, our report provides further evidence of the often-overlooked targeting of civil society in cyber espionage campaigns.  Civil society — including journalists, academics, opposition figures, and activists — comprise the second largest group (21%) of targets, after government.”

Below a list of notable targets shared by the researchers:

• A former Russian prime minister
• A former U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and a former senior director of the U.S. National Security Council
• The Austrian ambassador to a Nordic country and the former ambassador to Canada for a Eurasian country
• Senior members of the oil, gas, mining, and finance industries of the former Soviet states
• United Nations officials
• Military personnel from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Greece, Latvia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States, as well as NATO officials
• Politicians, public servants and government officials from Afghanistan, Armenia, Austria, Cambodia, Egypt, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Peru, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam

According to Deibert, Russian threat actors launched a large-scale campaign aimed to obtain credentials and sensitive files from the victims. The state-sponsored hackers used stolen data in carefully tainted leaks created by mixing real and false information to influence the sentiment of a portion of individuals on specific facts.

“Fake information scattered amongst genuine materials — “falsehoods in a forest of facts” as Citizen Lab’s John Scott-Railton referred to them —  is very difficult to distinguish and counter, especially when it is presented as a salacious “leak” integrated with what otherwise would be private information.” Deibert said.

“Russia has a long history of experience with what is known as ‘dezinformatsiya,’ going back even to Soviet times,” 

“Tainted leaks, such as those analyzed in our report, present complex challenges to the public.  Fake information scattered amongst genuine materials — ‘falsehoods in a forest of facts’… is very difficult to distinguish and counter, especially when it is presented as a salacious ‘leak’ integrated with what otherwise would be private information.”

Citizen Lab links the campaign to the Russian government confirming the findings of many other reports published by security firms and intelligence agencies.

Among the victims, there is also the US journalist David Satter, who has written a lot on the corruption of politicians and entrepreneurs in Russia.

Once hackers have stolen the Satter’s e-mails they have “selectively modified” them and then “leaked” to support the thesis that he was part of a CIA-backed plot to discredit Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Following the compromise of his account, Satter’s stolen e-mails were selectively modified, and then “leaked” on the blog of CyberBerkut, a self-described pro-Russian hacktivist group. This report introduces the term “tainted leaks” to describe the deliberate seeding of false information within a larger set of authentically stolen data.” reads the report.

According to Citizen Lab tainted leaks were used also to target officials from Afghanistan, Armenia, Austria, Cambodia, Egypt, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Peru, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, according to the report.

Below key findings of the report:

• Documents stolen from a prominent journalist and critic of the Russian government were manipulated and then released as a “leak” to discredit domestic and foreign critics of the government. We call this technique “tainted leaks.”

• The operation against the journalist led us to the discovery of a larger phishing operation, with over 200 unique targets spanning 39 countries (including members of 28 governments). The list includes a former Russian Prime Minister, members of cabinets from Europe and Eurasia, ambassadors, high ranking military officers, CEOs of energy companies, and members of civil society.

• After government targets, the second largest set (21%) are members of civil society including academics, activists, journalists, and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

• We have no conclusive evidence that links these operations to a particular Russian government agency; however, there is clear overlap between our evidence and that presented by numerous industry and government reports concerning Russian-affiliated threat actors.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Tainted Leaks, State sponsored hacking)

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