West ill-prepared to deal with evolving cyber threats, report concludes

An information and hacking campaign with links to a foreign state has potentially had a "significant cumulative impact" over many years, according to a report from Cardiff University - . The findings, from the Security, Crime and Intelligence Innovation Institute, provide the most comprehensive picture to date of the activities of the so-called Ghostwriter campaign. Tracking its evolving activities via open-source data, the report demonstrates how it has impersonated multiple government officials, NATO representatives and journalists across Europe. According to the team's analysis, it has impacted thousands of email users, hacked dozens of social media accounts and media websites and published hundreds of false blogposts. The integration of cyber-attacks with information manipulation has become more prominent following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Most recently, it has been engaging in cyber-attacks against Ukrainian government websites, targeting Ukrainian military and public figures on Meta's platforms, and credential phishing on Google. The report's analysis also covers incidents in Germany, Poland and Lithuania, which have already been publicised and linked to Ghostwriter by cyberfirm Mandiant.