US Senator’s request to website domain providers on Russian disinformation campaign

Six executives of the biggest US-based website domain providers received letters from a prominent US Senator raising concerns about their role in recently discovered disinformation attacks linked to the Russian government. 

Warner’s letters to Cloudflare, GoDaddy, NameCheap, NameSilo, Newfold, and Verisign

Cloudflare, GoDaddy, NameCheap, NameSilo, Newfold, and Verisign executives were urged by Senator Mark Warner to take action to investigate how they have “ostensibly facilitated sustained covert influence activity by the Russian Federation and influence networks operating on its behalf,” The Record reported.

“Your company has provided domain registration services to the Russian covert influence network known as ‘Doppelganger,'” Warner wrote, citing recent disruption actions by the Department of Justice. 

The Justice Department discovered in September that the Russian government uses a huge network of websites, some of which imitate popular websites like Fox News and the Washington Post, to disseminate fake news and stories meant to confuse and anger people.

U.S. prosecutors shut down Russian-owned website domains used in a government-led campaign known as “Doppelganger” to undermine global support for Ukraine. The Treasury and State Departments also said they would put sanctions on Russian people and groups they say are spreading fake news.

“Indicators that the six aforementioned domain registrars had sold websites to Doppelgänger operators were included in the DOJ’s report on seizing those 32 domains last month,” Warner wrote.

The US Senator added that the Meta report outlined several ways the domain registration industry has allowed the negative practices. These include neglecting to handle domain names that are obviously squatting attempts, ignoring errors in registration data, and denying registrar information to researchers acting in good faith.

According to the report, Sergei Kiriyenko, Russian president Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, and other officials in the president’s administration are in charge of the firms that operate the fake news website network targeting US and EU audiences.

Warner stated that Americans need to have trustworthy websites that provide factual information because the presidential election 2024 is expected to be a close contest.

Global providers sold domain names to managers of Russian disinformation campaigns

GoDaddy and NameCheap have been specifically named by the European Union’s Disinfo Lab as having contributed to the effectiveness of Russian fake news campaigns.

The international domain name providers were also condemned in a Meta report from last year for not doing more to combat this conduct. Meta shared its “detailed threat research into a Russian troll farm that targeted many apps across the internet in an unsuccessful attempt to create the false impression of grassroots support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

Doppelganger websites have occasionally been discovered by Meta that mimic official websites in France, Germany, Poland, and Ukraine.

“In the context of the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election, the prospect of foreign actors impersonating state and local government websites—and seeding narratives related to election outcomes or electoral processes—is especially dire,” Warner stated.

“Information included in the [Justice Department] affidavit supporting recent seizure of a number of these domains provides further indication of your industry’s apparent inattention to abuses by foreign actors engaged in covert influence.”

In addition to “ignoring inaccurate registration information submitted by registrants and failing to identify repeated instances of intentional and malicious domain name squatting used to impersonate legitimate organizations,” Warner pointed out that domain name companies still conceal important domain name registration information from researchers and investigators.

“Many of the domains seized by the Department of Justice—including those impersonating the Washington Post and Fox News—bore close resemblance (or in some cases, such as fox-news[.]top and fox-news[.]in, were identical) to impersonation domains mimicking those same news organizations in Meta’s August 2023 report,” Warner said. 

“While foreign covert influence represents one of the most egregious abuses of the domain name system, the industry’s inattention to abuse has been well-documented for years, enabling malicious activity such as phishing campaigns, drive-by malware, and online scams—all possible because of malicious actors using your services.”

The domain name market has outsourced the costs of dealing with this abusive behavior to victims and third parties, forcing them to pursue expensive and time-consuming lawsuits or dispute settlements through the World Intellectual Property Office, according to Meta’s research, Warner observed. 

Congress “may need to evaluate legislative remedies that promote greater diligence across the global domain name ecosystem,” Warner continued, cautioning each corporation. 

The identical three-page letters state that each corporation must address the ongoing misuse of its services for foreign covert influence, especially in the lead-up to elections, while Congress considers possible remedies. 

Several hostile countries are trying to erode trust in the impending election, according to confirmation from the Justice Department and internet giants like Google and Microsoft.

Warner’s letter cites other Facebook reports, researchers who continue to uncover disinformation networks, and the Justice Department warrants used to shut down hundreds of websites.

How does Russia’s Doppelganger network work?

Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has operated a disinformation campaign known as the Doppelganger network, which primarily focuses on posing as well-known Western media outlets. 

A Kremlin-linked network Doppelganger uses fake versions of real news sites to promote disinformation in the US and in the EU countries. Doppelganger is known for using a network of fake bot accounts to spread links to fake versions of real trusted news websites.

In the past, the network has cloned sites as diverse as WP, NBC, CNN, and Fox News in the United States. In these campaigns, the fake Russian website appears identical to the real Washington Post website and has the same design, except that it uses a slight variation of the real URL.

Russian agents of influence have already attempted to influence the US election by mimicking news outlets using social media accounts, phony websites, and other disinformation channels.

Read also: Agency of Social Design disclosed as a tool of Russian disinformation machine

According to research from Recorded Future, phony websites circulated other phony content about vice presidential candidate Tim Walz over the past week, including a phony video purporting to show Vice President Kamala Harris involved in a hit-and-run accident.

Warner recently called for explanations from the leaders of Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet over the actions taken by the internet behemoths to thwart disinformation efforts abroad at a congressional hearing. 

The corporations cautioned in their brief responses that First Amendment issues and low danger visibility are hindering their efforts to protect Americans from harmful content.

Top threats to US democratic institutions and elections

The US Department of Homeland Security stated in a study released on October 2 that Russia, Iran, and China represent the biggest threats to the country’s democratic institutions and vital infrastructure, especially in light of the impending presidential election.

According to the DHS assessment, hostile foreign actors may employ a variety of strategies to sabotage electoral processes, such as employing generative AI to produce text and video that seem real and propagate false information.

“Russia likely will continue to use traditional state-sponsored media, inauthentic websites, social media networks, online bots, trolls, and individuals to amplify pro-Kremlin narratives and conduct information operations targeting the United States,” the report said.

Russia is using “real U.S. voices” on major social media sites to “launder” propaganda and controversial stories that it wants to influence American audiences during the election campaign, the Washington Post reported in September.

Officials from the United States’ intelligence agencies stated that Russia’s secret efforts to change the outcome of the 2024 presidential election are smarter than in previous years and pose the most serious foreign threat during the current election cycle.

Russia has already faced accusations of using bot farms, disinformation on social media, and other tactics to support Donald Trump against his Democratic rivals, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

Read all articles by Insight News Media on Google News, subscribe and follow.

Leave a Comment

Scroll to Top