Today, we’re sharing our findings into two covert influence operations — from China and Russia — that we took down for violating our policy against Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB). We shared information with our peers at tech companies, security researchers, governments and law enforcement so they too can take appropriate action. At the end of our full report, we’re also including threat indicators to help the security community detect and counter malicious activity elsewhere on the internet. See the full CIB Report for more information.
I want us to consider the implications of this new reality: In three of the four most populous countries in the world, governments have now given themselves the power to order that the internet be wiped of citizens’ posts that the authorities don’t like.
A member of the Federal Communications Commission is calling on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over concerns that user data from the wildly popular social media platform is being accessed in China.
For years China’s censors have relied on a trusted tool kit to control the country’s internet. They have deleted posts, suspended accounts, blocked keywords, and arrested the most outspoken.
Now they are trying a new trick: displaying social media users’ locations beneath posts.
There were 35.93 million domain names registered within China as of the end of 2021, up more than 4.5 million in 12 months, from 31.36 million, according to the English version of the 49th Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development published in April.
For decades, Hong Kong’s internet operated outside the reach of China’s vast army of censors, guaranteeing the free flow of information that undergirds the city’s status as a global business hub.
Flood global social media with fake accounts used to advance an authoritarian agenda. Make them look real and grow their numbers of followers. Seek out online critics of the state — and find out who they are and where they live.
[news release] An operation coordinated by INTERPOL codenamed HAECHI-II saw police arrest more than 1,000 individuals and intercept a total of nearly US$27 million of illicit funds, underlining the global threat of cyber-enabled financial crime.
Verisign ended the second quarter of 2021 with 170.6 million .com and .net domain name registrations in the domain name base, a 5.2% increase in 12 months, and a net increase of 2.59 million during the second quarter of 2021, according to the company’s second quarter 201 results.
Across the Pacific, undersea cables weave between island nations, bringing them online and, in some cases, connecting them to Australia, but some governments fear this interconnectivity comes with risk.
