Paolo Palumbo: Russia is amplifying disinformation campaigns through artificial intelligence

Disinformation has always been part of Russia's state strategies and is now being amplified by the tools offered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), says Paolo Palumbo, a cybersecurity expert operating in Finland.

According to him, Russia is using new technologies to support the war in Ukraine, verbally and through digital manipulation attacking any country or public figure that expresses support for Kiev.

In an interview with The Geopost, Palumbo also talks about cyberattacks and the challenges journalism faces today.

Full interview:

Overall, when we look at the situation in Europe, we see that European organizations and countries need to defend against three main types of attackers and threat actors. On the one hand, we have traditional cybercrime groups that carry out information campaigns and cyberattacks for financial gain.

The second type of threat actor we see is hackers, who tend to advance political agendas through digital means. And finally, we encounter nation-state activities that are more connected to broader geopolitical themes and the agendas that these actors may have.

Of course, in many situations, there is not a very clear line between these actors and their operations. Sometimes they blur. For example, we know that Russia uses a very wide network of proxy entities to carry out some operations, thus merging nation-state operations with the type of hacking and pseudo-hacking operations.

In terms of traditional cybercrime, we see ransomware as the biggest threat. This is by far one of the most profitable ways threat actors can secure financial gains because it is easy to execute. It can leverage a vast hidden supply chain that provides attackers with ready-made components that they can afford. Something similar to the Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) that we see in normal ICT businesses.

Russia is generally extremely competent at conducting disinformation campaigns. This has been part of their strategies, and not just Russia's. This is something that many nation-states implement when necessary. Russia now uses disinformation to target and support the war effort that they are waging in Ukraine. And they use disinformation as a less costly method of targeting those who support Russia's adversary. Those who support Ukraine also become inevitable targets. And disinformation is one of those tools that they use to target.

We can see that the topic of artificial intelligence is interwoven with the field of disinformation, because clearly Russian state actors are not unaware of the advancement of technology. And so they use technology as they can to advance their agenda. There was a particular case recently where they created fake content using AI to target Friedrich Merz, right after he had expressed support for Ukraine.

So, Russian actors are generally opportunists. They use whatever techniques they can gather, but they're not necessarily focused solely on artificial intelligence. AI is one of the many tools they have at their disposal. And that reflects the nature of these threat actors: they're not there to explore technologies. They're there to achieve a specific objective, and then they'll use the technology that best fits that objective that they want to achieve.

I think we live in a moment where many of the balances, relationships, and ways of developing international cooperation are being challenged. This is not necessarily something that has happened now, but we are currently seeing a kind of sudden acceleration of the erosion of these mechanisms of international cooperation.

We have seen that some of our allies in the West have changed their approach; they are focusing more on advancing their own personal gain, and this is reflected in, for example, using tariffs as a negotiating mechanism to achieve what they want, even politically. Similarly, security is something that is used as a means to an end, to advance certain issues.

In many ways, I think we need to consider the fact that the world around us has changed, these balances have shifted, what we thought was the status quo is not necessarily something that is going to continue. And we also need to find how we as European nations engage with these different contexts in which we are operating.

I have great respect for the work that our institutions in the European Union are doing, because they are really trying to find the right approach to each of these changes that are coming up, such as how to respond to Russia showing strength and testing the defenses of Europe and the expanding NATO. How to respond to the United States imposing tariffs. This requires extraordinary content and strategic thinking about what is the best thing to do for Europe and for the different individual member states.

/The Geopost