12 December, 2019

Disinfo war: RU vs GB

A look at Russian info ops against Britain

   This entire sequence of events begins with the attempted poisoning of
   Sergei Skripal^[1]1, an ex-GRU officer who was a double-agent for the
   UK's intelligence services. This hit attempt happened on the 4th of
   March, 2018. 8 days later, then-Prime Minister Theresa May formally
   accused Russia for the attack.

   The toxin used in the poisoning was a nerve agent called Novichok. In
   addition to the British military-research facility at Porton Down, a
   small number of labs around the world were tasked with confirming
   Porton Down's conclusions on the toxin that was used, by the OPCW
   (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons).

   With the background on the matter out of the way, here are the
   different instances of well timed disinformation pushed out by Moscow.

The Russian offense

April 14, 2018

     * RT published an article claiming that Spiez had identified a
       different toxin -- BZ, and not Novichok.
     * This was an attempt to shift the blame from Russia (origin of
       Novichok), to NATO countries, where it was apparently in use.
     * Most viral piece on the matter in all of 2018.

   Although technically correct, this isn't the entire truth. As part of
   protocol, the OPCW added a new substance to the sample as a test. If
   any of the labs failed to identify this substance, their findings were
   deemed untrustworthy. This toxin was a derivative of BZ.

   Here are a few interesting things to note:
    1. The entire process starting with the OPCW and the labs is
       top-secret. How did Russia even know Speiz was one of the labs?
    2. On April 11th, the OPCW mentioned BZ in a report confirming Porton
       Down's findings. Note that Russia is a part of OPCW, and are fully
       aware of the quality control measures in place. Surely they knew
       about the reason for BZ's use?

   Regardless, the Russian version of the story spread fast. They cashed
   in on two major factors to plant this disinfo:
    1. "NATO bad" : Overused, but surprisingly works. People love a story
       that goes full 180°.
    2. Spiez can't defend itself: At the risk of revealing that it was one
       of the facilities testing the toxin, Spiez was only able to "not
       comment".

April 3, 2018

     * The Independent publishes a story based on an interview with the
       chief executive of Porton Down, Gary Aitkenhead.
     * Aitkenhead says they've identified Novichok but "have not
       identified the precise source".
     * Days earlier, Boris Johnson (then-Foreign Secretary) claimed that
       Porton Down confirmed the origin of the toxin to be Russia.
     * This discrepancy was immediately promoted by Moscow, and its
       network all over.

   This one is especially interesting because of how simple it is to
   exploit a small contradiction, that could've been an honest mistake.
   This episode is also interesting because the British actually attempted
   damage control this time. Porton Down tried to clarify Aitkenhead's
   statement via a tweet^[2]2:

     Our experts have precisely identified the nerve agent as a Novichok.
     It is not, and has never been, our responsibility to confirm the
     source of the agent @skynews @UKmoments

   Quoting the [3]Defense One article on the matter:

     The episode is seen by those inside Britain's security
     communications team as the most serious misstep of the crisis, which
     for a period caused real concern. U.K. officials told me that, in
     hindsight, Aikenhead could never have blamed Russia directly,
     because that was not his job--all he was qualified to do was
     identify the chemical. Johnson, in going too far, was more damaging.
     Two years on, he is now prime minister.

May 2018

     * OPCW facilities receive an email from Spiez inviting them to a
       conference.
     * The conference itself is real, and has been organized before.
     * The email however, was not -- attached was a Word document
       containing malware.
     * Also seen were inconsistencies in the email formatting, from what
       was normal.

   This spearphishing campaign was never offically attributed to Moscow,
   but there are a lot of tells here that point to it being the work of a
   state actor:
    1. Attack targetting a specific group of individuals.
    2. Relatively high level of sophistication -- email formatting,
       malicious Word doc, etc.

   However, the British NCSC have deemed with "high confidence" that the
   attack was perpetrated by GRU. In the UK intelligence parlance, "highly
   likely" / "high confidence" usually means "definitely".

Britain's defense

September 5, 2018

   The UK took a lot of hits in 2018, but they eventually came back:
     * Metropolitan Police has a meeting with the press, releasing their
       findings.
     * CCTV footage showing the two Russian hitmen was released.
     * Traces of Novichok identified in their hotel room.

   This sudden news explosion from Britan's side completely bulldozed the
   information space pertaining to the entire event. According to Defense
   One:

     Only two of the 10 most viral stories in the weeks following the
     announcement were sympathetic to Russia, according to NewsWhip.
     Finally, officials recalled, it felt as though the U.K. was the
     aggressor. "This was all kept secret to put the Russians on the
     hop," one told me. "Their response was all over the place from this
     point. It was the turning point."

   Earlier in April, 4 GRU agents were arrested in the Netherlands, who
   were there to execute a cyber operation against the OPCW (located in
   The Hague), via their WiFi networks. They were arrested by Dutch
   security, and later identifed as belonging to Unit 26165. They also
   seized a bunch of equipment from the room and their car.

     The abandoned equipment revealed that the GRU unit involved had sent
     officers around the world to conduct similar cyberattacks. They had
     been in Malaysia trying to steal information about the investigation
     into the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and at a hotel in
     Lausanne, Switzerland, where a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)
     conference was taking place as Russia faced sanctions from the
     International Olympic Committee. Britain has said that the same GRU
     unit attempted to compromise Foreign Office and Porton Down computer
     systems after the Skripal poisoning.

October 4, 2018

   UK made the arrests public, published a list of infractions commited by
   Russia, along with the specific GRU unit that was caught.

   During this period, just one of the top 25 viral stories was from a
   pro-Russian outlet, RT -- that too a fairly straightforward piece.

Wrapping up

   As with conventional warfare, it's hard to determine who won. Britain
   may have had the last blow, but Moscow -- yet again---depicted their
   finesse in information warfare. Their ability to seize unexpected
   openings, gather intel to facilitate their disinformation campaigns,
   and their cyber capabilities makes them a formidable threat.

   2020 will be fun, to say the least.
     __________________________________________________________________

    1. [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal
    2. [5]https://twitter.com/dstlmod/status/981220158680260613

References

   1. https://icyphox.sh/home/icy/leet/site/build/blog/ru-vs-gb/temp.html#fn:skripal
   2. https://icyphox.sh/home/icy/leet/site/build/blog/ru-vs-gb/temp.html#fn:dstltweet
   3. https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/12/britains-secret-war-russia/161665/
   4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal
   5. https://twitter.com/dstlmod/status/981220158680260613