Spotlight
Latest Research
January 2025
How Russia throttled YouTube for domestic audiences
Russia has a long history of targeted platforms, and aimed its restrictions on the most popular video-sharing platform in the country
January 2025
National Security Memorandum (NSM) on Artificial Intelligence: Democracy + Tech Initiative Markup
On October 24, 2024, the Biden Administration released its National Security Memorandum (NSM) on Artificial Intelligence. Read along with AC Tech Programs staff, fellows, and industry experts for commentary and analysis.
January 2025
Russia and Azerbaijan’s narrative warfare against Armenia’s European path
Russia and Azerbaijan deploy aligned narratives to undermine Armenia’s partnership with the West
January 2025
Politically biased observers attempted to legitimize fraudulent elections in Georgia
Ruling party media amplified coverage of nearly two dozen individuals to portray them as credible election observers
January 2025
Analysis: Meta’s fact-checking pullback will have global consequences
The social media company’s widespread overhaul of its content moderation policies will have a real-world negative impact, embolden authoritarian regimes, and put its own users at risk
January 2025
Georgian Dream exploits Western politicians and commentators for its propaganda goals
Government propaganda selectively quotes Western politicians and distorts affiliations to portray them as high-ranking figures supporting Georgian Dream
January 2025
DFRLab: a look back at 2024
Revisiting key milestones in DFRLab publishing over the last calendar year
December 2024
AI tools used in Kenya to discredit protesters and allege Russian connections
The pro-government campaign appears to involve a marketing firm that employs influencers
December 2024
Partnering to counter information manipulation in South Caucasus and Eastern Europe
Project MUGA (Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia) is led by the INFO OPS Poland Foundation in partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
In-Depth Reports
September 2024
Mythical Beasts and Where to Find Them: Mapping the Global Spyware Market and its Threats to National Security and Human Rights
The Mythical Beasts project pulls back the curtain on the connections between 435 entities across forty-two countries in the global spyware market.
September 2024
Mythical Beasts and Where to Find Them
Mythical Beasts and Where to Find Them: Mapping the Global Spyware Market and its Threats to National Security and Human Rights is concerned with the commercial market for spyware and provides data on market participants.
June 2024
User in the Middle: An Interoperability and Security Guide for Policymakers
When technologies work together, it benefits users and the digital ecosystem. Policymakers can advance interoperability and security in tandem by understanding how each impacts the other.
June 2024
“Reasonable” Cybersecurity in Forty-Seven Cases: The Federal Trade Commission’s Enforcement Actions Against Unfair and Deceptive Cyber Practices
The FTC has brought 47 cases against companies for unfair or deceptive cybersecurity practices. What can we learn from them?
June 2024
Another battlefield: Telegram as a digital front in Russia’s war against Ukraine
In this new report, the DFRLab investigates the role of Telegram in Russia since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine
April 2024
Markets Matter: A Glance into the Spyware Industry
The Intellexa Consortium is a complex web of holding companies and vendors for spyware and related services. The Consortium represents a compelling example of spyware vendors in the context of the market in which they operate—one which helps facilitate the commercial sale of software driving both human rights and national security risk.
February 2024
Hacking with AI
Can generative AI help hackers?
By deconstructing the question into attack phases and actor profiles, this report analyzes the risks, the realities, and their implications for policy.
February 2024
TikTok: Hate the Game, Not the Player
How Strategic and Regulatory Confusion Around TikTok Prevent an Effective National Security Response
January 2024
Design Questions in the Software Liability Debate
Software liability—resurgent in the policy debate since its mention in the 2023 US National Cybersecurity Strategy—describes varied potential structures to create legal accountability for vendors of insecure software. This report identifies key design questions for such regimes and tracks their discussion through the decades-long history of the debate.
Projects
Russian War Report
As Russia’s aggression in Europe heats up, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is keeping a close eye on Moscow’s movements across the military, cyber, and information domains.
Foreign Interference Attribution Tracker
The DFRLab’s Foreign Interference Attribution Tracker (FIAT) is an interactive, open-source database that captures allegations of foreign interference relevant to the 2024 election. This tool assesses the credibility, bias, evidence, transparency, and impact of each claim.
Election Official Handbook: Preparing for Election Day Misinformation
As part of the Election Integrity Partnership, the DFRLab has analyzed roughly four hundred cases of election-related dis- and misinformation on social media. This memo gathers the findings and issues recommendations for US election officials: they must prepare for viral falsehoods online that persist for weeks.
Dichotomies of Disinformation
Via the DFRLab’s Github: This project isolates “political disinformation campaigns.” Dichotomies of Disinformation proposes and tests a classification system built on 150 variable options. Our intent is to establish a replicable, extensible system by which widely disparate disinformation campaigns can be categorized and compared.
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