1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:02,240 Influence campaigns. 2 00:00:02,240 --> 00:00:05,570 In this lesson, we're going to talk about influence campaigns, 3 00:00:05,570 --> 00:00:07,670 what they are and how they're used. 4 00:00:07,670 --> 00:00:09,070 And the first point I want to make 5 00:00:09,070 --> 00:00:11,270 is that influence is power. 6 00:00:11,270 --> 00:00:12,800 This is something that is well known 7 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:14,980 by military and political leaders. 8 00:00:14,980 --> 00:00:16,990 And that's why influence operations 9 00:00:16,990 --> 00:00:19,300 and influence campaigns exist. 10 00:00:19,300 --> 00:00:21,330 Now, when I talk about influence operation, 11 00:00:21,330 --> 00:00:23,460 this is a collection of tactical information 12 00:00:23,460 --> 00:00:24,440 about an adversary, 13 00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:26,920 as well as the dissemination of propaganda 14 00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:30,270 in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. 15 00:00:30,270 --> 00:00:33,010 Now, that's a really nice fluffy way of saying 16 00:00:33,010 --> 00:00:35,890 you want to take information and use it against someone. 17 00:00:35,890 --> 00:00:38,540 That's what influence operations is all about. 18 00:00:38,540 --> 00:00:41,550 Now, influence operations is really the military term, 19 00:00:41,550 --> 00:00:43,360 but in the compTIA objectives, 20 00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:46,600 they use the term influence campaign instead. 21 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:47,680 An influence campaign 22 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:51,270 is one small part of a larger influence operation, 23 00:00:51,270 --> 00:00:52,700 but we're going to use these terms 24 00:00:52,700 --> 00:00:54,980 interchangeably throughout this lesson. 25 00:00:54,980 --> 00:00:55,820 Now, when we talk about 26 00:00:55,820 --> 00:00:58,270 an influence campaign or an influence operation, 27 00:00:58,270 --> 00:00:59,780 what exactly is it? 28 00:00:59,780 --> 00:01:01,770 Well, as I went through the news today, 29 00:01:01,770 --> 00:01:04,870 I found an article that says US election 2020: 30 00:01:04,870 --> 00:01:07,610 who do Russia, China, and Iran want to win? 31 00:01:07,610 --> 00:01:08,780 And it goes on to talk about 32 00:01:08,780 --> 00:01:10,250 the fact that these three countries 33 00:01:10,250 --> 00:01:12,810 are trying to influence the US elections. 34 00:01:12,810 --> 00:01:14,560 Now, how can they influence it? 35 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:17,020 Well, there's a couple ways they could do this. 36 00:01:17,020 --> 00:01:19,740 One way might be for them to actually wage war against us. 37 00:01:19,740 --> 00:01:20,960 That will be one way to do it. 38 00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:24,000 But that's pretty abrupt and very in your face. 39 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,460 So instead, what a lot of these countries do 40 00:01:26,460 --> 00:01:29,320 is they use influence operations instead. 41 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:30,900 By using influence operations, 42 00:01:30,900 --> 00:01:32,600 you can start changing the narrative 43 00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:35,720 on places like social media, in the newspapers, 44 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:37,710 or even in the general populace. 45 00:01:37,710 --> 00:01:39,690 And by doing that, you can start changing 46 00:01:39,690 --> 00:01:42,090 the way the country thinks, the country acts, 47 00:01:42,090 --> 00:01:43,840 and the country votes. 48 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:45,530 And that is what's going on. 49 00:01:45,530 --> 00:01:46,550 Now, as I said, 50 00:01:46,550 --> 00:01:47,620 influence operations 51 00:01:47,620 --> 00:01:50,400 are something that's often done by militaries. 52 00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:52,550 And it's a form of hybrid warfare. 53 00:01:52,550 --> 00:01:54,330 When we talk about hybrid warfare, 54 00:01:54,330 --> 00:01:55,610 this is a military strategy 55 00:01:55,610 --> 00:01:58,020 that employs the full spectrum of warfare. 56 00:01:58,020 --> 00:01:59,610 It's going to use political warfare 57 00:01:59,610 --> 00:02:01,180 and blending conventional warfare 58 00:02:01,180 --> 00:02:03,220 like dropping bombs and shooting guns. 59 00:02:03,220 --> 00:02:04,890 It's going to use a regular warfare 60 00:02:04,890 --> 00:02:08,550 like special operation teams and even cyber warfare. 61 00:02:08,550 --> 00:02:10,130 And when you're doing cyber warfare, 62 00:02:10,130 --> 00:02:12,040 you can use influencing methods, 63 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:13,880 things like putting out fake news, 64 00:02:13,880 --> 00:02:15,370 things like using diplomacy 65 00:02:15,370 --> 00:02:17,540 or foreign electoral intervention. 66 00:02:17,540 --> 00:02:18,820 There's lots of things you can do 67 00:02:18,820 --> 00:02:20,560 as part of this hybrid warfare, 68 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:21,770 and under hybrid warfare, 69 00:02:21,770 --> 00:02:22,730 influence operations 70 00:02:22,730 --> 00:02:25,630 is part of the grander military strategy. 71 00:02:25,630 --> 00:02:26,463 Now, you may be wondering 72 00:02:26,463 --> 00:02:27,880 why are we talking military strategy 73 00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:30,010 in a class on cyber security? 74 00:02:30,010 --> 00:02:33,060 Well, it's because it's being used in the cyber realm 75 00:02:33,060 --> 00:02:35,550 and it's being used inside our corporate networks. 76 00:02:35,550 --> 00:02:38,000 For instance, some of our large companies out there 77 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:39,560 like Facebook and Twitter 78 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:42,640 have been used to do these influence campaigns. 79 00:02:42,640 --> 00:02:45,680 If you look back to our 2016 election in the United States, 80 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:47,420 there has been proof that the Russians 81 00:02:47,420 --> 00:02:49,340 were running an influence campaign. 82 00:02:49,340 --> 00:02:50,840 According to the New York Times, 83 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:53,120 the Russian influence campaign on social media 84 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:54,920 in the 2016 election 85 00:02:54,920 --> 00:02:58,310 made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans 86 00:02:58,310 --> 00:03:01,670 and used an array tactics to try to suppress voter turnout 87 00:03:01,670 --> 00:03:03,520 among those democratic voters 88 00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:06,350 and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram 89 00:03:06,350 --> 00:03:07,680 that was actually higher 90 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:09,920 or exceeded the amount of posts on Facebook. 91 00:03:09,920 --> 00:03:11,670 Even though when we look at the news, 92 00:03:11,670 --> 00:03:13,350 most of the things that we're talking about 93 00:03:13,350 --> 00:03:14,560 was the fact that the Russians 94 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:16,690 were influencing data on Facebook. 95 00:03:16,690 --> 00:03:18,880 And hear in the 2020 elections, 96 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:20,980 they've tried to overcome that with Facebook, 97 00:03:20,980 --> 00:03:23,170 by going through and creating different algorithms 98 00:03:23,170 --> 00:03:25,940 and different ways to say this might be fake news. 99 00:03:25,940 --> 00:03:28,900 But again, this doesn't mean that the other countries 100 00:03:28,900 --> 00:03:31,170 are going to stop trying to interfere in the elections. 101 00:03:31,170 --> 00:03:33,920 This is something that has a global power dynamic, 102 00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:35,950 and us as people who use social media 103 00:03:35,950 --> 00:03:37,370 are caught in the middle. 104 00:03:37,370 --> 00:03:38,640 So you have to be aware of this 105 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:40,720 because it is being used against you. 106 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:41,560 I don't know about you, 107 00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:44,330 but I spend quite a bit of time on social media. 108 00:03:44,330 --> 00:03:46,020 My favorite happens to be Facebook, 109 00:03:46,020 --> 00:03:47,270 but I know other people who like 110 00:03:47,270 --> 00:03:51,020 TikTok and Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat 111 00:03:51,020 --> 00:03:52,320 and all of these things, 112 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:54,300 there are operations that are being used 113 00:03:54,300 --> 00:03:56,820 to influence you and influence your mind. 114 00:03:56,820 --> 00:03:59,690 I know I sound crazy, I know I sound paranoid, 115 00:03:59,690 --> 00:04:01,570 but whether you believe me or not, 116 00:04:01,570 --> 00:04:03,470 for the exam, you need to realize 117 00:04:03,470 --> 00:04:05,370 that influence campaigns are a thing, 118 00:04:05,370 --> 00:04:06,203 and you need to understand 119 00:04:06,203 --> 00:04:08,050 that they're used as part of hybrid warfare 120 00:04:08,050 --> 00:04:10,040 and they're used over social media 121 00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:11,540 as the transmission mechanism.