Cyber experts have traced a network of thousands of AI-operated social media accounts to China, amid ongoing fears of foreign interference in the 2024 election.
The network was exposed by cybersecurity firm CyberCX, which found that up to 8,000 fake X accounts had used generative AI to promote “divisive” political content on the platform ahead of the November vote.
The network, named “Green Cicada” by CyberCX, utilized AI to “launder” political content already on the social media site, rewording it as organic posts, retweets and replies in an effort to “amplify organic divisive content on X.”
A smartphone screen displays the X profile page of Donald Trump. A cybersecurity firm claims to have exposed an 8,000-strong network of fake accounts, which distributed AI-generated messages on the X platform to sew division in the leadup to the 2024 presidential election.
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Since at least April, the network – which CyberCX highlighted was “among the largest publicly-identified networks of inauthentic activity” ever exposed – has operated the 24-hour campaign across multiple time zones, with a “sharp increase” in activity since July, National Security News reported.
While the majority of the accounts in the Green Cicada Network are “dormant” – 30 times the scale of the active cluster – CyberCX believes this “sleeping giant” could become more active as the election approaches.
However, the network’s attacks appear to have no specific political target or leaning, with two separate August campaigns identified by CyberCX focusing on retweets that both criticized and supported Kamala Harris following her nomination as the Democratic Party candidate.
A People’s Republic of China symbol on a microprocessor. Cybersecurity firm CyberCX said it had traced an online campaign aimed at amplifying political division on social media to China.
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While CyberCX said that the Green Cicada network was “unlikely to be effective for malign political influence in its current state,” its report highlights how more advanced AI-driven campaigns could “allow a significant scale of malicious output with limited human oversight, at low cost and with low barriers to entry.”
“We assess that a more mature, future version of the system underlying the Green Cicada Network would be extremely difficult for parties other than X to detect.”
CyberCX said that the campaigns, which have also “amplified hot-button political issues” in the U.K. and other democratic countries, had observable links to China.
“The system controlling the network is strongly associated with China,” CyberCX said. “Including the likely use of a Chinese-language [large language model] system and links to an AI researcher affiliated with Tsinghua University and Zhipu AI, a prominent Chinese AI company.”
While it could not conclusively determine links to the Chinese government, CyberCX added that “amplification of divisive content in democracies is also consistent with China’s information operations playbook.”
In 2023, Meta said it had shut down nearly 8,000 Facebook accounts linked to a Chinese political spam network, known in the cyber community as “spamouflage,” which spread pro-China messages, criticisms of U.S. policy and targeted opponents of the Chinese government.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (C) accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaks during an Election Threats Task Force meeting at the Justice Department on September 4, 2024 in Washington, DC. Garland, who launched the task force three years ago after a steep increase in violent threats to election workers, reaffirmed his commitment to safeguarding election workers domestically and also announced two actions against Russia for attempted covert influence operations.
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Accusations of foreign interference have already featured heavily in this year’s presidential election.
In August, Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center released a report detailing the “foreign malign influence” of China, Russia and Iran in the runup to the November election.
Many of these “cyber-influence operations,” Microsoft highlighted, were “aimed at US audiences and potentially seek to impact the 2024 US presidential election.”
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice charged two Russian employees of state news agency RT with conspiring to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts.”
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