Leaked documents show how Russia intelligence is working with a contractor, NTC Vulkan, to launch cyberattacks and distribute false information on the internet. The leak came from a Russian upset about the invasion of Ukraine. The documents reveal programs to create phony social media pages and included a map of the U.S. with what seemed to be clusters of internet servers, presumably identified for possible cyberattack. (The Washington Post, March 30, 2023, by Craig Timberg, Ellen Nakashima, Hannes Munzinger and Hakan Tanriverdi)
Vulkan created systems allowing the Russian military to mount covert false information campaigns on social media by creating fake accounts with realistic profiles, “They spread disinformation, including a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton and a denial that Russia’s bombing of Syria killed civilians. Following the invasion of Ukraine, one Vulkan-linked fake Twitter account posted: ‘Excellent leader #Putin’.” (The Guardian, March 30, 2023, by Luke Harding, Stiliyana Simeonova, Manisha Ganguly and Dan Sabbagh)