Title: Analyzing Russian Information Warfare and Influence Operations | Global Security Review
Headings: Analyzing Russian Information Warfare and Influence Operations
Analyzing Russian Information Warfare and Influence Operations
Social media and the access it provides to voter data give Russian active measures the ability to influence the outcome of an election
What is Information Warfare?
The Cyber Component
The Security Gap
Sophia Porotsky

Content: While the West is on guard to combat information warfare during hostilities, Russia is perpetually mounting an information warfare offensive. Furthermore, Russia views propaganda and disinformation as “at least as important as the traditional…notion of crippling cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure. By contrast, the Western approach to cyber threats has typically focused on technical responses to technical threats, mostly disregarding the interface with information warfare in the broad sense.” This revelation ties into the 2016 US Presidential election: once the US was alerted to the threat of cyber intrusion from a foreign adversary, they focused their efforts on protecting the hardware: the voting machines, when in fact Russia was focusing its efforts on manipulating the voters (facilitated by social media). The outcome is the manifestation of the diverging understandings of information warfare between Russia and the West. This is the first instalment examining Russian information warfare, the use of social media, and the US election. Part two, Facebook, Compromised: How Russia Manipulated U.S. Voters with Social Media delves deeper into the mechanics of Russian disinformation and misinformation strategies;