Russia's cyber spies still threatening French national security, democracy

A fresh report into the Nobelium offensive cyber crew published by France's computer emergency response team (CERT-FR) highlights the group's latest tricks as the country prepares for a major election and to host this year's Olympic and Paralympic Games. Most infoseccers will know Nobelium/Midnight Blizzard as the Russian …

[Eclectic Man]

"The attacks follow similar campaigns targeting both the Summer and Winter Games in recent years. Russia, researchers claimed, tried to frame North Korea for the malware attacks on its friendlier, southern neighbors when that nation hosted the 2018 Winter Games"

And yesterday Putin and Kim signed a Defence Pact, so clearly they have made up since then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Invest in people

The Kremlin has quite successfully invested in people (Margarita Simonyan/RT, John Mark Dougan, Tucker Carlson, the Internet Research Agency, Yevgeny Prigozhin/Wagner/Ooops!, ...) to run its mass online influence campaigns aimed at promoting nutly far-right politicians in western democracies and others (Brazil - Bolsonaro, Argentina - Milei, ...) through the development and spread of nonsensical fake news and batshit crazy conspiracy theories. So much so it seems, that Putin now has to go and beg food-shortaged North Korea for flimsy weaponry to conduct its pitiful invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine.

Well, we should certainly counter that with our own investments in people IMHO, plus advanced tech of course. The linked CSIS report by Conley and Jeangène Vilmer outlines 15 interesting (yet short) "Lessons" on how to do that successfully. Let's use them to advantage, and protect democracy!

[martinusher]

Re: Invest in people

A more enlightened view would simply say that different people have different views and interpretations of events and philosophies. Its a bit worrying that people in both Europe and the UK are normalizing the notion of 'goodthink', the idea that if you don't toe the Party line then you're obviously a tool of some adversary and should therefore become a non-person.. I've watched this process from afar -- I live in California -- and I'd guess that most people in Europe just don't notice the environment changing around them in the same way that a fish doesn't notice water.

I'd interpret Putin's visit to North Korea, for example, as a response to the sanctions regimes imposed on countries by "the West". Think about it for a minute. We've been imposing sanctions regimes on other countries as part of our "Global Rules Based Order" for decades, ostensibly as a response to some bad behavior by a country but really as a tool of our foreign policy. Countries so sanctioned have economic problems so their regimes -- such countries never have government, they're always 'regimes' -- can be cited as economically incompetent etc. (We also finance, directly and indirectly, a whole raft of NGOs and the like that 'promote democracy' which might lead to reactions by a country and so us being able to cite them for 'oppressive regimes'.) We've been doing this for decades but in recent years we've overdone it -- soft power has to be used judiciously otherwise it becomes ineffective. This inexorable process has led to the situation where 'sactioned' countries are starting to outweigh 'non-sanctioned', thereby calling the entire notion of sanctions regimes into question. Obviously all this is a bit subtle for many so its easier to just say things like "flimsy weaponry to conduct its pitiful invasion"; the only snag being that this sort of thing just doesn't make sense any more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Invest in people

Well said! After all, if even the very eloquent former US president Donald J. Trump trusts Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin more than he trusts US Intelligence, then he must also be right to have cultivated a beautiful fondness for Kim Jung Un, expressed in dozens of love letters. I hope this cute penmanship bromance, which makes me jealous, lasts for a long time, at least until Donald is released from prison.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Invest in people

A more enlightened view would simply say that different people have different views and interpretations of events and philosophies.

Very fine people on both sides.

I've watched this process from afar -- I live in California -- and I'd guess that most people in Europe just don't notice the environment changing around them in the same way that a fish doesn't notice water.

If only you'd bothered to refocus your binoculars to closer to home then you'd notice a changing environment around there as well, I mean there was that little kerfuffle about three and a half years ago... but do carry on lecturing from afar.

[Pascal Monett]

"a disinformation campaign to undermine president Emmanuel Macron"

It's okay, President Macron has his own campaign to undermine himself.

And he is succeeding brilliantly.

[Blackjack]

Re: "a disinformation campaign to undermine president Emmanuel Macron"

The French forgive everything.... minus touching the age of retirement line.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "a disinformation campaign to undermine president Emmanuel Macron"

Worse yet, it's like we're stuck in Geert Wilders' Netherlands, without a dyke, flooded by Boy Jordan's neo-fascist reinterpretation of Karma Chameleon, through that looking glass where left wingers are now the antisemites! Fela Kuti's Upside Down song comes to mind here ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian cyber spies threatening French democracy :o

As distinct from the DGSE who spy on the French and our own dear GCHQ that spy on US /s