Microsoft's & Facebook's Latest Threat Assessment Slams China, Iran & Pakistan For 'State …

The People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republics of Iran and Pakistan are bringing in new playbooks to undermine their enemies within and outside their borders – low-cost cyber-enabled influence operations. Microsoft and Facebook’s latest threat assessment underlines the evolution of threats posed by state-sanctioned tactics like creating fake personas, honey trapping, creating a phony media company in the West, hiring freelance writers around the world, offering to recruit protesters, and co-opting an NGO in Africa. While the Microsoft report talks about only Iranian operations, Facebook talks about the sophistry in cyber operations conducted by China, Iran, and Pakistan. While Iran’s target remains its arch nemesis Israel and the US, China has expanded the geographical limits of its operations to target its enemies within the border and other countries in Asia-Pacific and South Asia. Pakistan was found to be carrying out an elaborate cyber-espionage operation against its arch nemesis – India, to target people across the internet to collect intelligence and manipulate them into revealing compromising information. The Rise Of China-Origin Cyber Influence Ops There has been a change in threat actors, novel geographic targeting, and new adversarial tactics. China is also taking a leaf from the playbook of
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