I wanted to toss out a little bit of Cyber Warfare information here so that our members can be more informed and vigilant regarding Nation State/Agitator accounts.
Being aware will allow us to not engage unnecessarily, and reduce the overall divisiveness and anger that are beginning to permeate gun boards across the spectrum.
How Attackers Operate
Cyber attacks on an information medium such as this site come in 3 different tiers of sophistication.
-Amateur
These are some of the example narratives from recent threads that seem to match active campaigns, with the possible campaign identified:
I look forward to the day that the majority of social media posts and traffic is strictly manipulative in nature.
Being aware will allow us to not engage unnecessarily, and reduce the overall divisiveness and anger that are beginning to permeate gun boards across the spectrum.
How Attackers Operate
Cyber attacks on an information medium such as this site come in 3 different tiers of sophistication.
-Amateur
- This attacker is the typical uninformed visitor from the opposite idealogical alignment.
- They are here mostly to stir things up, confirm their opinions of the evil nature of the people they consider the baddies, and achieve a catharsis by jousting on the internet with their foes.
- TTP's include accounts with recent join dates, immediate engagement in mostly controversial topics, and low-information attacks that follow the typical Logical Fallacy chain.
- These attackers are low risk, and mostly only serve to slightly increase the tension on Social Media.
- Amateur attackers will generally stick to the opposing talking points and have very low information responses outside of them.
- Professionals are using a greater skillset and technology support structure to create the maximal desired effect within the minimal budgetary envelope.
- A professional attacker will generally have a well defined script they are following, immediately search for these controversial topics and begin engaging, and will frequently take EITHER the most supportive or inflammatory positions possible depending on who paid them for what reason.
- Accounts used to by Professionals will be short lived, but more sophisticated than the blatant shill accounts used by the Amateur. These accounts may have a join date of several years ago, but are mostly abandoned by their owners.
- Professionals take over accounts by using a technology called Credential Stuffing. Credential Stuffing allows the attacker to use passwords that were stolen from major data breaches to access systems that weren't part of the original hack.
- Highly active users are less susceptible to Credential Stuffing as they will reset their password quickly if their account begins posting nonsense on the forum.
- Professionals can be in the employ of private political organizations, politicians, companies, or Nation State actors.
- Highly professional organizations will have a psychologist design their script to create maximum damage.
- Professional campaigns are able to be spotted most effectively by analyzing a users post history for primarily low non-propaganda participation, or the reactivation of an abandoned account.
- Most professional agitators will have an extreme opinion that they are more than happy to interject with, despite the fact that no person who actually held such an opinion would say so publicly or likely be a member of the site in question.
- Nation State actors exist on todays Social Media spectrum in almost all instances, and will represent the Cyber Combatants from both sides.
- Effective Nation State operations can weaken civil unity, discredit legitimate government interests, damage economies and infrastructures, and destroy beneficial social structures like institutional trust, family dynamics, and morality/ethics.
- Nation State actors combine Professional paid engagements for deniability with dedicated full time resources that are working to achieve their Cyber Goals.
- A Nation State actor is part of an overall strategy to create the effects listed in part 2 of this subsection, and has substantial financial, technical, and planning support to achieve their goals.
- Almost all NS influence operations are supported by dedicated psychologists/propagandists and computer infrastructure designed to measure and multiply the damage caused by the enemy.
- Spotting NS actors is extremely difficult - skilled operatives will appear to be precisely what they claim to be, and a combination of long-running strategy and the full time employment aspect of the job allow them to create convincing cyber profiles that can span for years.
- Nation State actors will generally speak flawless English, and immediately respond properly to the different branches of conversation they wish to influence.
- The best way to spot and mitigate damage from NS operatives is to identify likely narratives and TTP's and assume even in the absence of evidence that these campaigns are underway.
These are some of the example narratives from recent threads that seem to match active campaigns, with the possible campaign identified:
- Statements that any person in the US capitol was a traitor and should have been/be executed (weakens institutional trust, furthers US Civil War)
- Statements that police should be defunded and replaced with a Federal local police force (weakens institutional trust, strengthens central government activities, furthers US Civil War)
- Statements that socialism is the only possible solution to our societal ills (support for Communism/greater government control, greater acceptance of China)
- Racism/Sexism/Religious Persecution (destroys civil unity and justifies narratives around reparations and racist behaviors towards the majority, enrichment of racial propagandists, strengthening of Democratic narratives)
- Ukranian Corruption Scandal (Narrative is being magnified to reduce public interest in intervening in Ukraine/Russia Affairs)
- Higher incidence of extreme hostility from accounts that identify as Australian (likely next Chinese target after Taiwan, meant to destroy Western civil unity)
I look forward to the day that the majority of social media posts and traffic is strictly manipulative in nature.
