On Hybrid Warfare

Inspired by a couple of posts I've seen on my own social media feeds, I think we, as a cyber security industry, need to do more to explain what we mean when we talk about "hybrid warfare".

I thought I'd use the Paris riots as a demonstration of how hybrid warfare works in practice. Lots of people will claim that the Russians are simply making up falsehoods to cause division. That is emphatically not true. The #GiletsJaunes protests are a great example of their tactics, following on from previous operations around Black Lives Matter in the States and, of course, our very own Brexit. The social problems and divisions around BLM, Brexit and Gilets Jaunes are real - no-one should use the activities of hostile actors to pretend that the underlying grievances are not genuine. However - and this is the important bit - what the Russians do is to take those divisions and use them as a lever to further weaken their targets. How?  They'll produce propaganda, seed it on the Internet and social media and hope "useful idiots" pick it up and start to amplify the content by sharing it. Ask yourself where all of the pictures of the rioters are coming from (RT anyone?), the memes of protesters being water cannoned, pictures of troop carriers with an EU flag outlined in red etc etc. Some of those pictures will be 100% genuine. Most will be tinkered with or complemented by a set narrative destined for one side of the debate or the other.  Anything to further polarize opinion and discourage rationality. Why is it called hybrid warfare? Because it's not all on-line; you may find a few Russian operatives or their agents at these protests agitating for more aggressive behaviour - someone needs to make sure that the relevant photo opportunities arise.

The sole aim of these operations is to cause division - you can see how effective it is by the effective hollowing out of the political centre across the West.  Why do this?  Because it leaves the West weak and fighting amongst itself rather than looking for more practical fixes to social issues and global trouble spots (hello Ukraine and Yemen btw).

Pet theory time - feel free to disagree :)  As the western world increasingly focuses on whether QAnon or the Canary are the sole sources of truth and enlightenment, it means that there is no concerted effort to tackle climate change - the real and present danger to our species and our planet.  Ask yourself, what draws together the US Right, Putin and the Saudis into their current close alliance? It's not a love of crochet. They profit hugely from fossil fuels. All of the division and conflict in the world offers a number of opportunists the chance to push their own local agendas, be that racial hatred, nationalism or disaster capitalism, but the alliance between those driving the division is much more basic - simple human greed for wealth and power.  Some will happily see the world burn so long as they are paid to provide the fuel.

What to do about it?  Don't share divisive nonsense you find on the Internet - you're only pushing the interests of enemies of the United Kingdom. Stick to verifiable facts.  Follow people whose opinions you disagree with - do not get stuck in your own filter bubble. Go to the source materials.  Find trustworthy journalists rather than propagandists.  If anyone is telling you that they have easy answers, find other sources, you're being played.  To conclude, if you think you're too smart to fall for psyops operations such as these then I'm afraid to tell you this but you're likely their perfect mark...