The Evolution of Russian Subversion in Cyber: A Conversation with former GCHQ Chief David Omand

By Sir David Omand GCB

Sir David Omand GCB is a Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and at PSIA Sciences Po in Paris where he teaches a course he has designed on digital intelligence. His posts in government service included UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet Office after 9/11, Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, Director of GCHQ, Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Policy in the MOD and Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence. He is the Senior Independent Director of Babcock International Group plc and a senior adviser to Paladin Capital Group, investing in the cybersecurity sector. He is an honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College Cambridge and holds an honorary doctorate from Birmingham University.

Twitter is releasing a trove of known accounts and posts that it says were used to meddle in U.S. elections dating back to 2016.  According to the company, the data includes more than 4,600 accounts and more than 10 million tweets, photos, GIFs and broadcasts linked to Russia and Iran.  Many of those tweets are associated with the Internet Research Agency, the Russian-linked organization that has been indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in connection with election-related activities.

This comes as the U.S. is just weeks away from mid-term elections and to date, officials say there have been no substantive efforts to influence the vote in the way they saw in the 2016 Presidential election. 

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+


Related Articles

Search

Close