Incident I00051: Integrity Initiative

Summary: The UK Foreign Office has accused Russian state media of trying to discredit a government-funded body that works to counter Kremlin disinformation. A spokesperson said the Institute for Statecraft was hacked several weeks ago and documents were "published and amplified by Kremlin news channels". The FCO comments on the IfS were issued after a news report said the group had retweeted stories critical of Labour. Western officials believe the group involved in the hack is linked to the Russian state. Since then internal documents have been leaked to the Russian media about the organisation's activities, including lists of journalists it had contacted. The Foreign Office has provided £2.2m in funding to the institute over the last two years supported its work to counter disinformation overseas and not in the UK
incident type: incident
Year started: 2018
Countries: Russia , World
Found via:
Date added: 2019-03-20

Technique	Description given for this incident
T0010 Cultivate ignorant agents	I00051T005 cultivate, manipulate, exploit useful idiots
T0019 Generate information pollution	I00051T004 RT & Sputnik generate information pollution
T0025 Leak altered documents	I00051T001 hack/leak/manipulate/distort
T0031 YouTube	I00051T006 YouTube; Reddit
T0032 Reddit	I00051T006 YouTube; Reddit
T0046 Search Engine Optimization	I00051T007 SEO optimisation/manipulation ("key words")
T0053 Twitter trolls amplify and manipulate	I00051T003 Twitter trolls amplify & manipulate
T0054 Twitter bots amplify	I00051T002 Twitter bots amplify & manipulate
T0056 Dedicated channels disseminate information pollution	I00051T004 RT & Sputnik generate information pollution

DO NOT EDIT ABOVE THIS LINE - PLEASE ADD NOTES BELOW

Actor: Russia

Timeframe: December 2018 - (ongoing)

Date: December 10, 2018

Presumed goals:

Russian disinformation intended to confuse audiences and discredit an organisation (Integrity Inititative)which is working independently to tackle the threat of disinformation. Russia’s state-owned media outlets have seized on the posted materials, with the government’s RT and Sputnik news sites writing dozens of stories claiming that the materials prove that the British government, rather than Russia, is trying to poison internet discourse with propaganda.

Method:

Hack (email), leak, amplify, smear MSM

Counters: none identified

Related incidents:

The campaign also threads other organization into the “conspiracy” such as Britsh Military, NATO and the CIA.
With it, efforts to further discredit MH17 for instance; tie-in Soro’s (dog-whistle for the far-right);
yet at the same defend the far-left alleging Integrity Initiative was running a smear campaign again UK Labour/Jeremy Corbyn

References:

Datasets:

Notes:

RT and Sputnik claim that the Integrity Initiative hack was the work of freelancers aligned with the online Anonymous collective and who were not affiliated with the Russian government. The primary evidence for that, according to RT and Sputnik, is that the stolen Integrity Initiative material was posted to the website of a hacktivist collective called CyberGuerrilla, alongside manifestos claiming “We are Anonymous” and posts saying “We have warned the UK government that it must conduct an honest and transparent investigation into the activity of the Integrity Initiative and the Institute for Statecraft.”

The Integrity Initiative has pulled down its website, replacing it with a reiteration of its mission, a description of the hack, and a call for tips. “This international public programme was set up in 2015 to counter disinformation and other forms of malign influence being conducted by states and sub-state actors seeking to interfere in democratic processes and to undermine public confidence in national political institutions,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

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Incident I00051: Integrity Initiative

4.9 KiB

Исходник Ответственный История