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Topic

State-Linked Influence Operations

Covert campaigns by governments or state-aligned networks that use fake personas, fabricated media, and propaganda to sway foreign audiences and public opinion.

Current stories

securityOne report1 publisher

Hyperlocal sites in at least 14 states appear written for AI crawlers, VisionHeight finds

VisionHeight, an Israeli threat intelligence firm, found hyperlocal websites in at least 14 states that appear written for AI crawlers to read. The firm says Perplexity cited one page as its first source for an answer. It has not named who runs the network.

Publishers:cyberscoop.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption5
Hype gap+25
Incentives45
Confidence50
securityConfirmed3 publishers

Russian and Iranian AI-made personas got propaganda into real news outlets before OpenAI shut them down

OpenAI shut down Russian and Iranian influence operations whose AI-built fake journalists and think tanks got stories into real news outlets. For editors who take outside pitches, a credible byline or institute name proved nothing about whether a real person stood behind it.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 18%
Operator
Operator 70%
Investor
Investor 12%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives55
Confidence60
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Anthropic says Claude AI was used to build a Malaysian election manipulation platform

Anthropic says Claude was used to build a commercial Malaysian election-manipulation platform that ran about 1,000 X accounts targeting 222 constituencies. Writing the content now takes prompts instead of staff, so AI vendors share the policing with the social platforms that still carry the posts.

Publishers:theguardian.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

Insikt Group puts Russian sabotage and network intrusion in Europe under one escalating strategy

Recorded Future's Insikt Group says Russia-linked sabotage in Europe rose four-fold from 2023 to 2024 and held at that level in 2025. It expects Russia to escalate in the near term, possibly into a full-scale New Generation Warfare campaign.

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives45
Confidence40
securityOne report1 publisher

Influence Operations Now Target Construction Schedules, Not Just Elections

Recorded Future logged three CopyCop impersonations against the US-Armenian Firebird AI data center in a 20-day window, the last of them fabricating an Iranian military case for hitting it.

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption52
Hype gap+10
Incentives68
Confidence55