Meta: Russia Becomes the Country with the Most Dangerous Campaigns

Russia has become a country with the spread of dangerous campaigns (photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Meta shared a number of updates intended to protect everyone on its platform from threats ranging from common hacks to commercial spyware.

"The stronger our defenses, the more bad actors try to exploit even the smallest loopholes in their targeting across services," wrote Guy Rosen, Chief Information Security Officer and Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy in the Meta newsroom.

This year, we rolled out new account security measures, surpassed 200 total influence operation takedowns and introduced new tools to keep people safe from phishing and malware.

Learn more about how we’re protecting people from online threats 👇https://t.co/NoqaG9ezKi

— Meta Newsroom (@MetaNewsroom) December 15, 202

Taking Action Against Covert Influence Operations

In terms of accounts with covert influence or known as malicious campaigns, since 2017 to date, Meta has managed to stop more than 200 networks violating Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB) policies on Facebook and Instagram worldwide.

"These fraudulent networks originate in 68 countries and operate in at least 42 languages. The vast majority of them target people in their home countries, and only about a third, which are intended only for an audience outside their own country, engage in foreign interference," he added.

Russia is the country with the most CIB network sources, followed by Iran and Mexico. Meanwhile, on the victim side, the United States is the country most frequently targeted by global CIB operations, followed by Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

To make matters worse, influence operations originating in Russian networks most often targeted Ukraine, then African countries, followed by the US.

What Will Meta Do?

Meta itself will share information regarding the operational network with several community leaders including researchers, industry, and government. They say this step will be even more important to help uncover these networks.