The lines between espionage and warfare are being blurred by artificial intelligence, cyber operations, disinformation and influence campaigns.
The era of spies in trench coats and dark glasses, hiding behind newspapers to eavesdrop on people, is long gone. Although human intelligence has not disappeared entirely, technology has greatly enhanced it. James Bond may have had some nifty gadgets up his sleeve, but ‘The name’s Bot’ is the new trend.
The advent of the cyber era, with its global data flows and reliance on the internet and smartphones, has enabled intelligence agencies to gain in speed and efficiency.
Cyber states
Intelligence actors can now swiftly find patterns, correlations and insights by gathering and analysing vast amounts of data collected through satellites, online communications or surveillance feeds. Hence why all the major powers are upping their investment in cyber and AI for everything intelligence…
Dr Olivier Del Fabbro, a researcher and senior lecturer in philosophy at ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, confirms this trend. He adds that modern technology has also led to blurring the lines between intelligence gathering and strategic impact, or to put it another way, the shift between merely observing reality to influencing it.
Olivier Del Fabbro, Researcher and lecturer in Philosophy at ETH Zurich, Interview by Jean-Claude Majerus, Radio 100,7 (in Luxembourgish)
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“In Russia, a lot of money is being poured into AI, even at the cyber level, which involves, for example, generating code or hacking into critical infrastructure with the help of AI. This is also happening on the Chinese side, which means we are seeing how AI is being used more and more, not only to carry out espionage, but also to attack various points in a targeted manner. Attacks on public opinion by way of disinformation, for example, or on critical infrastructure, which is also largely controlled via digital systems.”
This is where we enter the realm of ‘hybrid warfare’, a war in which Europe already finds itself well and truly embroiled.
The European Union describes hybrid warfare as a “systematic pattern of malicious behaviour” that ranges from intelligence gathering through to disinformation, cyber-attacks, sabotage and covert political influence. José María Gil Garre, a Spanish expert in security and strategic analysis, provides further details.
José María Gil Garre, Expert in security and strategic analysis, Interview by Aitana Sánchez, esRadio Castilla y León (in Spanish)
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“We are in a moment of what we call a hybrid conflict, a hybrid war that can manifest itself at some point through more overt violent actions, perhaps with unknown actors obscured by sabotage operations. We have seen how a country was partitioned through a cyberattack, as in Estonia [in 2007], or how cyberattacks during COVID-19 paralysed hospital intensive care unit systems, leading to a loss of life. […] It is true that people see war as something that manifests itself in a very obvious, outwardly aggressive way, but relationships develop – commercial, economic, technological relationships – in this grey area. We must conceptualise this spectrum of uncertainty in some way in order to understand it quickly, and this is what we call ‘hybrid warfare’.”
It’s not only the methods that are changing; the mix of actors involved is evolving too. In today’s world, even your neighbour could become a spy. Russian and Chinese intelligence services recruit ordinary people through social media and online platforms like LinkedIn. They are offered attractive salaries for seemingly simple tasks, which gradually escalate into requests for confidential information. These methods often involve deception and exploiting personal vulnerabilities, such as financial need or familial ties.
Observers such as ENISA note the blend of malicious actors at work here, particularly criminal networks willing to provide any service for the right price. Russian state services have also been found to hire individuals to carry out one-off acts of sabotage, such as arson or physical surveillance. Often, the operative doesn’t even realise they are working for a foreign state… which can make it difficult to trace the origin of these actions.
Faketivism
At the same time, of course, sympathisers are also being actively recruited. Many populist and far-right parties across the EU are complicit in the so-called ‘cognitive warfare’ being waged by Moscow. This is a technique that draws on scientifically tailored disinformation and propaganda to impair people’s cognitive abilities. It uses technologies that can influence a recipient’s short-term attention and reactions, as well as long-term thinking, and sets out to sow fear, exacerbate social divisions and undermine institutions. Russian intelligence services increasingly use AI to carry out disinformation campaigns through ‘deepfake’ videos and other similar techniques.
Georgi Angelov, a senior analyst at global media monitoring company Sensika, explains how Russian disinformation is being spread in Bulgaria, for instance.
Georgi Angelov, Senior analyst at Sensika, Interview by Radoslav Chichev, BNR (in Bulgarian)
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“There are also networks of influence – these are websites connected to Facebook groups, and often one owner has two or three sites. This is very often hidden, but they do have a single infrastructure. They use one Google Ads account. And then we see where they share content. They have dozens of linked pages on social media – on Facebook, and especially on Telegram. On Telegram, for example, 80 to 90 per cent of the content can be characterised as Bulgarian disinformation. There is simply this network where people who trust each other share things that appeal to their mindset. And there’s nothing in the world that can convince [members] it isn’t true because they start seeing confirmation of the same thing from many different channels. But actually, it all comes from the same source.”
And here’s Kaupo Rosin, director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, explaining how Moscow is working to develop its influence in what it labels the ‘Balto-Scandinavian macro-region’.
Kaupo Rosin, Director General of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, Interview by Timo Tarve, Kuku Raadio (in Estonian)
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“Today, Russia classifies the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea – including the Baltic states – as a single entity, referred to as the ‘Balto-Scandinavian macro-region’ or ‘Baltoscandia’. This region is treated as an integrated strategic space and various coordinated policies are being developed towards it, including some specific approaches to influence operations. In the future, we are likely to see efforts to extend engagement through academic circles and to promote inter-parliamentary cooperation. This so-called ‘soft influence’ is becoming increasingly prominent. Through it, the Russians are attempting to restore their influence and voice in the region. We therefore caution that seemingly sincere proposals from Russian research institutions or academics should be approached with caution, as there is often a hidden strategic objective behind them.”
Meanwhile, cybercrime has risen to unprecedented levels. Within the EU, nearly half of such crimes target the availability of a given system or service.
All these activities – state-sponsored or otherwise – often peak in the run-up to elections or political events in a phenomenon that has been dubbed ‘faketivism’. And they do not fail to sow discord, mistrust and divisions.
When combined with AI tools, satellites also play a key role in gathering intelligence, in particular on military capabilities and movements and identifying agents all over the world. But when you add to this ‘open-source’ intelligence, which uses social media and online databases to detect signals amidst overwhelming background noise, the capabilities of modern intelligence gathering really know no bounds.
Recognising the power of such tools, Europe is scrambling to find ways to counter them – because it cannot afford to fall behind.
