SecTor 2025 | Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) (Disinformation 2.0)

Why It Matters

Because foreign‑sponsored disinformation can distort democratic processes and market decisions, businesses and governments need robust defenses to protect credibility and decision‑making.

Key Takeaways

• Disinformation is deliberate, foreign‑origin manipulation, not mere opinion differences.
• Russia and China use coordinated fake personas, bots, and websites.
• Long‑term campaigns embed “big lies” with kernels of truth.
• AI‑generated channels and “pink slime” sites amplify false narratives.
• Fact‑checking can be weaponized; attribution remains technically challenging.

Summary

The SecTor 2025 session titled “Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI)” examined how state‑backed actors deliberately inject distorted content into the information ecosystem to sway public opinion and policy.

Speaker Frankie Sagerman traced disinformation from Cold‑War KGB operations to today’s AI‑enhanced campaigns, outlining the ABC‑D model (Actors, Behavior, Content, Distribution, Effect). He highlighted that attribution is increasingly opaque, with bots and fake personas masking Russian, Chinese, and Iranian networks across multiple languages and platforms.

Concrete cases illustrated the playbook: a fabricated NATO video showing a Nazi insignia, “pink‑slime” news sites such as Miami Chronicle, the Russian‑run “Operation Doppelganger” spoofing legitimate URLs, and AI‑generated YouTube channels masquerading as credible outlets. Even fact‑checking sites can be co‑opted to legitimize falsehoods.

The proliferation of these tactics threatens electoral integrity, policy debates, and corporate reputation. Organizations must invest in cross‑platform detection, improve attribution capabilities, and treat disinformation as a long‑term strategic risk rather than a short‑term nuisance.

Original Description

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) (Disinformation 2.0) - How Patterns of Behaviour in the Information Environment Threaten or Attack Organizations' Values, Procedures and Political Processes

Over the past decade, foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) operations have grown in complexity and scope. More specifically, Russia and China have continuously invested resources into developing their hybrid warfare strategy. Hybrid warfare goes beyond physical confrontation. It can include the use of conventional forces but also other elements, such as FIMI operations, to shape the policy, geostrategic positions, public opinion, and capabilities of a target country.

The speed, availability, and cohesion of tools and tactics employed by foreign malign actors have increased in recent years as the result of increasing global interconnectivity via social media and the internet at large, as well as technological advancements - such as rapid improvements in generative AI - that increasingly enable faster, better, and cheaper FIMI operations and tactics including deep fakes, and manipulated content including text, images, audio, and video. Additionally, these campaigns increasingly seek to destabilize the very foundations of target countries - undermining democratic principles through the targeting of elections, eroding public trust in institutions and local media, and exploiting social divisions to distract and subvert the target's efforts toward progress.

The speaker will walk the audience through some case studies that highlight patterns that targeted both NATO as an organization as well as individual NATO member countries and how there is often a link between different tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) - such as usage of proxies, usage of sock puppet accounts, and increasing usage of generative AI to support their activities. FIMI campaigns also frequently target specific demographics to influence decision-making processes in politics, economy, or societal affairs.

The lessons the speaker will share will help any organization better prepare for these narrative attacks created by misinformation and disinformation.

Although attribution is not always straightforward on social media, it often becomes obvious through narrative analysis and social network analysis that foreign actors and the ecosystems they cultivate online covertly try to influence international public opinion on a wide range of topics and issues by amplifying polarization and eroding democratic discourse. The World Economic Forum 2025 Global Risks Report recognizes misinformation and disinformation as the #1 global threat with technological, economic, environmental, social, and political impacts.

By:

Franky Saegerman | Retired NATO

Presentation Materials Available at:

https://blackhat.com/sector/2025/briefings/schedule/?#foreign-information-manipulation-and-interference-fimi-disinformation-20---how-patterns-of-behaviour-in-the-information-environment-threaten-or-attack-organizations-values-procedures-and-political-processes-47272