Speaker: Christy Quinn, Security Specialist in Cyber Threat Intelligence at iDefense (part of Accenture Security)

Chair: Lucas Kello (University of Oxford)

State-Sponsored Hacktivism: Attributing Cyber Information Operations Using Hacktivist Personas

Hacktivism represents an important segment of the cyber threat landscape – independent, ideologically motivated activists that seek to advance their chosen causes and agenda through malicious cyber intrusions and attacks. Conventional hacktivism has, however, significantly declined in significance and effectiveness since the peak of the Anonymous movement in 2011. Despite the weakness of hacktivism, its decline has been masked by the widespread adoption of hacktivist personas as outlets for deniable information operations, especially by Russian and Iranian state-sponsored cyber operations assets. False hacktivist personas, including the infamous Guccifer 2.0 and Fancy Bears Hack Team, have formed a core part of Russian strategic information operations targeting NATO and its allies since 2013, spearheaded by the Russian cyber operations group SNAKEMACKEREL (also known as Sofacy, APT28 or Fancy Bear). This lecture will discuss an ongoing strategic research project by iDefense on identifying and classifying hacktivist personas as part of state cyber information operations.

About the speaker:

Christy Quinn is a Security Specialist in Cyber Threat Intelligence at iDefense, part of Accenture Security. Christy specialises in threat actor behavioural analysis, organized cyber crime and state-sponsored information operations.

Lunch will be provided from 12.15pm.

Please note that photography will be taking place during this event. By entering and participating you are giving your permission to be photographed and for the University to use the pictures in the future.

Eventbrite processes data (including any personal data you may submit by responding to this invitation) outside of the European Economic Area. Please submit only any personal data which you are happy to have processed in this way, and in accordance with Eventbrite's privacy policy applicable to attendees. If you prefer not to use Eventbrite for responding to this invitation, you may respond directly to ctga-admin@politics.ox.ac.uk.