The US Department of Justice said the FBI has seized 32 online domains used by the Doppelgänger, in a Russian disinformation campaign targeting the American public ahead of this year's presidential election.
See also: Doppelgänger: New disinformation campaign via social media
According to court documents, Doppelgänger is believed to be linked to Russian companies Social Design Agency (SDA), Structura National Technology (Structura) , and ANO Dialog, which are controlled by the Russian Presidential Administration.
Doppelgänger agents used the domains (all controlled with the open-source Vesta hosting control panel) to spread Russian government propaganda aimed at promoting pro-Russian policies and interests, including reducing international support for Ukraine and disinformation among voters in the US and elections in Germany, Mexico, and Israel, among others.
Doppelgänger often used “cybersquatted” domains created to mimic legitimate websites to spread Russian government messages falsely portrayed as content from credible news organizations. The group also sometimes created its own media brands, such as Recent Reliable News, to further spread Russian disinformation content.
See also: Doppelgänger: Disinformation campaign targets Germany
To increase traffic to these sites, Doppelgänger employed various strategies, including using “influencers,” running paid ads on social media (occasionally generated with artificial intelligence), and creating social media profiles that impersonated American or non-Russian citizens.
These profiles were used to post comments with links to cybersquatted domains, aiming to mislead viewers into believing they are redirected to legitimate media websites.
The Justice Department also indicted Russian nationals Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, a Digital Media Projects Director and employee of RT (formerly Russia Today), a Russian state-owned media outlet, for orchestrating a $10 million scheme that created and distributed Russian propaganda and disinformation to the U.S. public.
They posted nearly 2,000 videos on YouTube that were viewed more than 16 million times through a Tennessee-based online content creation agency. The videos were also posted on social media, including TikTok, Instagram and X.
Kalashnikov, Afanasyeva and eight other RT executives, including editor-in-chief Margarita Simonovna Simonyan, as well as a hacker group known as “Russian Angry Hackers Did It” with ties to RT and Russian intelligence services, were also sanctioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
See also: Israel-Hamas: How Social Media Amplifies Disinformation
Disinformation refers to false information that is deliberately spread to deceive others. It can take various forms, such as misleading news articles, fabricated images, and deceptive posts on social media. The strategic dissemination of disinformation is often used in political contexts, such as in the case of Russian disinformation, aiming to shape public opinion or influence election results. Its impact can undermine trust in institutions and lead to confusion among the general population. As technology advances, the methods of spreading disinformation continue to evolve, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish true facts from false ones in today's information landscape.
Source: bleepingcomputer
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