FBI busts Russian ‘social media bot farm’ spreading fake news in US

The whole operation was conducted by the FBI and the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), in partnership with Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), Netherlands Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD), and Netherlands Police.

Modus operandi of the Russia-owned bot farm

The agencies involved in the operation released a joint advisory aimed at raising awareness of the propaganda mill’s modus operandi and intentions.

According to the advisory, the Russian state-sponsored actors used the covert Meliorator software for foreign malign influence activity, aimed at benefiting Moscow.

The actors obtained and controlled the domain names “mlrtr.com” and “otanmail.com” from a U.S.-based provider. They then used those domains to create the email servers that ultimately allowed them to create fictitious social media accounts using the bot farm software.

The covert AI-enhanced software package was used to create fictitious online personas representing various nationalities to post content on X, formerly Twitter.

Further, these online personas were used to spread “disinformation to and about a number of countries, including the United States, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, and Israel.”

The tool has been only identified on X, however, the organizations say that it was meant to expand its activities to other social media sites as well.

According to the advisory, the tool is capable of creating authentic appearing social media personas en masse, and deploying content similar to typical social media users.

It can also mirror disinformation of other bot personas, perpetuate the use of pre-existing false narratives to amplify malign foreign influence, and formulate messages to include the topic and framing, based on the specific archetype of the bot.

Next steps and comments from FBI

The organizations have asked social media companies to use this information to help in identification and stopping the functioning of “fictitious personas to reduce Russian malign foreign influence activity.”

It also suggests that the network behind the Russia-owned bot farm had access to the Meliorator software package as early as 2022, suggesting it could have been being used to drive disinformation since then.

“With these actions, the Justice Department has disrupted a Russian-government backed, AI-enabled propaganda campaign to use a bot farm to spread disinformation in the United States and abroad,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

“As the Russian government continues to wage its brutal war in Ukraine and threatens democracies around the world, the Justice Department will continue to deploy all of our legal authorities to counter Russian aggression and protect the American people.”

“Today’s actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Wray also said that Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, “scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.”

“The FBI is committed to working with our partners and deploying joint, sequenced operations to strategically disrupt our most dangerous adversaries and their use of cutting-edge technology for nefarious purposes,” Wray added.