On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against two 46-year-old Russian nationals. Sanctions were also placed on the respective companies they own.
These sanctions were enacted due to engaging in cyber influence operations. Ilya Andreevitch Gambashidze (Gambashidze) is the founder of the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Moscow-based company. Nikolai Aleksandrovitch Tupikin (Tupikin) is the CEO and owner of Structura LLC, a Russian-based company group. Both men have been accused of being connected to a “foreign malign influence campaign” in connection with the Russian government. The disinformation campaign operates under the name ‘Doppelganger’ and targets European and U.S. organizations. The campaign utilizes social media accounts and inauthentic news websites to execute its mission. According to the Treasury “SDA and Structura have been identified as key actors of the campaign, responsible for providing [the Government of the Russian Federation] with a variety of services”. These services include impersonating government organizations and news outlets through the creation of websites. Both men have been accused of creating and operating a disinformation campaign that generated over 60 websites. These websites impersonated legitimate news outlets and social media accounts to disseminate content in the Fall of 2022. Meta has described Doppelganger as the “largest and most aggressively-persistent Russian-origin operation”. Recorded Future also stated the network attempted to leverage generative artificial intelligence (AI) as a means of generating inauthentic news articles. Both companies have also previously been sanctioned in July 2023 by the Council of the European Union. These sanctions came as a result of conducting a digital information manipulation campaign. This campaign intensified propaganda regarding support for Russia in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
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https://thehackernews.com/2024/03/us-sanctions-russians-behind.html
