A comprehensive, weekly recap of the news and events that define ASD’s work and mission.
Our Take The Kremlin’s use of malign finance to undermine democracy: ASD Director Laura Rosenberger will testify before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment on “Undermining Democracy: [...]
Our Take Internet Research Agency (IRA) operatives attempt to hijack American social movements: ASD Social Media Analyst Bret Schafer’s essay on the IRA’s imitation of African-American activists online, featured in the National Urban League’s State [...]
Our Take Russia’s use of the “Energy Weapon” to interfere in democracy: ASD, in collaboration with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), published The Energy Weapon, the second in a series on vectors of Russian malign influence, which ex [...]
Our Take In Foreign Affairs, ASD Co-directors Laura Rosenberger and Jamie Fly argue that policymakers should put partisanship aside to work together to secure election systems and set consequences for foreign actors that interfere with U.S. democra [...]
Our Take Together with the Bertelsmann Foundation, ASD will host a screening of the film, Harmony: Latvian Democracy at Russia's Doorstep, on tomorrow, Tuesday, April 16th from 6:00 to 7:00 PM at Landmark’s E Street Cinema in downtown Washington, D [...]
Our Take ASD Fellow for Emerging Technologies Lindsay Gorman spoke at the NATO Engages 2019 event last week. Gorman argued that NATO and its member states are not ready to face the challenges of emerging technology in the interference space, as the [...]
Our Take Following the conclusion of Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, ASD published a fact sheet on Russian interference. As it illustrates, “Russian interference operations against the United States during the 2016 presidential election we [...]
Our Take ASD Senior Fellow Joshua Kirschenbaum published a digital brief on the national security dangers of opaque foreign investment, arguing that “undeclared foreign investments allow malign actors to cultivate political influence, gain economic [...]
Our Take In a new paper, ASD Director Laura Rosenberger and Research Assistant Tom Morley show how the Russian government and its proxies nurture and shape illiberal populist movements as a means of destabilizing the West. Earlier this month, Rosen [...]
Our Take ASD Co-directors Laura Rosenberger and Jamie Fly spoke about how Russia, China, and others use the authoritarian toolkit to interfere in democracies with Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the [...]
Our Take ASD Director Laura Rosenberger and Co-Director Jamie Fly spoke at the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs last week. They also gave an [...]
Our Take ASD Co-Directors Laura Rosenberger and Jamie Fly published an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News arguing that “political divisions, which Russia's efforts exploit, are hindering our ability to respond forcefully to this threat [of foreign in [...]
Our Take ASD’s Brad Hanlon and Tom Morley examined the hidden relationship between trendy, English-language social media programs on allegedly independent media networks and Russian state-sponsored media company RT, in a story picked up by CNN. The [...]
Our Take Updates to the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Authoritarian Interference Tracker highlight Russian state-sponsored media outlets’ efforts to discredit adversaries and to manipulate social media using inauthentic accounts. News and Comm [...]
Our Take ASD Senior Fellow Joshua Kirschenbaum testified on January 29th before the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion, and Tax Avoidance regarding the vulnerability of the European Union’s financial institutio [...]
Our Take ASD Senior Fellow Joshua Kirschenbaum spoke with ProPublica about the slow pace of reform in anti-money laundering enforcement for hedge funds, noting that: “It’s the kind of thing that should have taken two to three years, not 17.” Kirsch [...]
Our Take ASD’s Thomas Morley argued that “a rising tide of populism, nationalism, extremism, and illiberalism continued to upend politics” in the past year, and these trends will likely continue in 2019, affecting elections throughout the transatla [...]
Our Take ASD’s David Salvo commented on espionage allegations levelled against American Paul Whelan, for ABC News. Salvo joined a number of intelligence experts in analyzing the veracity of Russia’s claims. ASD’s Bret Schafer discussed Russian disi [...]
Our Take On December 28th, ASD and partner C4ADS published a case study on the First Czech-Russian Bank, exposing how the private Russian bank became a key vector for Russian interference in Europe, exploiting campaign finance loopholes and other s [...]
Dear readers, we will resume our newsletter after the holidays, on January 7, 2019. As the year comes to a close, please consider donating to the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). Your financial support is critical to our efforts to defend demo [...]
Our Take ASD's Authoritarian Interference Tracker is now live! The Tracker catalogs over 400 incidents of Russian government interference in 42 countries since 2000. You can explore the tracker here. You can also watch ASD’s event that launched the [...]
Our Take ASD's Authoritarian Interference Tracker is now live! The Tracker catalogs over 400 incidents of Russian government interference in 42 countries since 2000. You can explore the tracker here. You can also watch ASD’s event that launched the [...]
Our Take On Tuesday, December 4, ASD will launch the Authoritarian Interference Tracker, a new interactive tool that analyzes the Russian government’s interference operations in 42 countries across the transatlantic space over the past two decades. [...]
Our Take The Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Bradley Hanlon and Samuel Riddell published “Disinformation at the Dinner Table,” a guide for discussing influence operations with skeptical family members over the holidays. News and Commentary New [...]
Our Take Bret Schafer, Social Media Analyst for ASD, published a report summarizing the findings from the first year of data from ASD's Hamilton 68 Dashboard. Schafer examines Russia-linked information operations on Twitter from an operational and [...]
Our Take ASD Director Laura Rosenberger joined the Democracy Works podcast to talk about foreign interference, and highlighted potential future threats related to artificial intelligence and “deep fake” videos. Social Media Analyst Bret Schafer pub [...]
Our Take Laura Rosenberger joined Voice of America to discuss strategies to counter foreign interference in U.S. elections. Laura Rosenberger and Jamie Fly stressed the importance of securing our elections and countering authoritarian interference [...]
Our Take Laura Rosenberger and Jamie Fly joined Sirius XM to talk about how to secure democracies from election hacking and foreign interference. Laura Rosenberger contributed to a European Commission collection of “ThinkPieces” on Election Interfe [...]
News and Commentary Russian charged with information warfare against the United States tied to IRA’s Prigozhin: On October 19, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against Elena Khusyaynova, a Russian national, for “Conspiracy to defra [...]
News and Commentary Platforms move against U.S. actors engaging in inauthentic social media behavior: Americans on both the left and the right have begun to mimic the Russian playbook by creating fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter to promote “fa [...]
News and Commentary Russian GRU officers attempted to hack organization investigating the Skripal poisoning: On October 4, the Netherlands announced that it expelled four Russian military intelligence directorate (GRU) officers in April for attempt [...]
News and Commentary Russian hacking group launches powerful new cyber weapon: Fancy Bear, a hacking group linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU), has developed a powerful new cyber weapon that resists conventional counter-methods. Th [...]
News and Commentary White House unveils national cyber strategy to deter foreign adversaries: On September 20, the Trump administration announced a new cyber strategy, which outlines how the administration will approach cybersecurity and deter and [...]
News and Commentary President Trump signs Executive Order on investigating and imposing sanctions for election interference: On September 12, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) to clarify and streamline the process of detecting and sanc [...]
News and Commentary In Senate hearing, Twitter and Facebook executives admit to mistakes, while Google is conspicuously absent: Facebook COO Sharyl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appeared in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligenc [...]
News and Commentary Efforts to secure the November midterms are still lagging: The Secure Elections Act, which seeks to improve the security of U.S. election systems, is currently stalled in the Senate. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) [...]
News and Commentary Microsoft and social media companies uncover influence campaigns from Iran, Russia: Last week, Microsoft announced it dismantled a phishing campaign by the Russian state-sponsored hacking group Fancy Bear (also known as APT28 or [...]
News and Commentary Federal and state officials address vulnerabilities ahead of midterm elections: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hosted a three-day “National Election Cyber Exercise” to “identify best practices and areas for improvemen [...]
News and Commentary U.S. sanctions Russia over Skripal poisoning: The United States announced new sanctions on Russia as mandated under the 1991 Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act for the “attempt to assassinate U.K [...]
ASD Congressional Testimony on "Foreign Influence Operations on Social Media" The Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Director Laura Rosenberger testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on August 1 to discuss foreign adversaries’ [...]