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| rope/Radio Liberty, June 24, 2014. Antoine Blua, Russian Spiritual Centre Set to Open in the Heart of Paris The Guard- ian, Oct. 19, 2016. Antoine Blua, Russia Unveils Cultural, Orthodox Jewel On The Seine Radio Free Eu- rope/Radio Liberty, Oct. 17, 2016. The Role and Impact of Non-Traditional Publishers in the 2017 French Presidential Election, Bakamo, 2017; Andrew Rettman, ‘‘Russia-Linked Fake News Floods French Social Media EUobserver, Apr. 20, 2017. Rick Noack, ‘‘Cyberattack on French Presidential Front-Runner Bears Russian Fingerprints, Research Group Says The Washington Post, Apr. 25, 2017. John Leyden, ‘‘Kremlin-Backed DNC Hackers Going After French Presidential Hopeful Macron The Register, Apr. 25, 2017. Macron Leaks The Anatomy of a Hack BBC News, May 9, 2017; Wikileaks Publishes Searchable Archive of Macron Campaign Emails Reuters, July 31, 2017. Paris-based Institute for Democracy and Cooperation is led by a former Duma deputy, Natalia Narochnitskaya, and according to one expert toes a blatantly pro-Kremlin line with its representatives regularly appearing on Russian state-controlled media. 695 The Russian Orthodox Church has a significant presence in France and recently completed construction on anew church and community center near the Eiffel Tower—seen as a visible display of Russian might in the heart of Europe and part of the Kremlin’s attempts to influence France’s strong Russian diaspora. 696 The facility has been accorded diplomatic status and the community center’s activities are opaque, amidst concerns held by some government and civil society interlocutors in Paris that the space could be used to house Russian intelligence activities. 697 Against this backdrop of carefully fostered cultural, media and political ties, the Kremlin ramped up the use of additional information warfare tools to seize on anti-European sentiment around the 2017 French presidential election and discredit Macron in particular. For example, a study released in April by a UK-based firm noted that nearly one in four website links shared by French social media users before the French election come from sources which challenge traditional media narratives.’’ 698 In April, a Macron campaign spokesman said that ‘‘2,000 to 3,000 attempts have been made to hack the campaign, including denial-of-service attacks that briefly shutdown Macron’s website and more sophisticated efforts to burrow into email accounts of individual campaign workers.’’ 699 Research by a private cybersecurity firm indicated that the Macron campaign was a target of APT, the same Russian government- linked hackers behind the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and DNC doxing attacks. 700 Just days before the runoff vote, hacked emails and documents from Emmanuel Macron’s campaign were leaked online. The hack was first announced by an alt-right activist in the United States, whose tweet promoting the leak was reportedly spread with the help of bots and a network of alt-right activists before being picked up by Wikileaks, which ultimately published a searchable archive of tens of thousands of emails and documents hacked from the Macron campaign. 701 Indications of Russian state-sponsored cyberattacks against French entities date back to before the 2017 presidential election, starkly illustrated by the massive cyberattack against French global broadcaster TV5Monde in 2015. Ina swift assault, 12 of the net- VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt PO 00000 Frm 00129 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER 124 Sam Jones, Russia Mobilises an Elite Band of Cyber Warriors Financial Times, Feb. 23, 2017. Gordon Corera, How France’s TV Was Almost Destroyed By Russian Hackers BBC, Oct. 20, 2016. Testimony of Admiral Michael S. Rodgers, Commander of the US. Cyber Command, Download 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
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