The USA appreciated the “fake stories” of Ilya Gambashidze and Nikolai Tupikin
Washington imposed sanctions against the Russians Ilya Gambashidze And Nikolai Tupikin, accusing them of helping Russian authorities in a campaign to exert harmful influence by creating fake media sites, social media accounts, etc. This is discussed on US Treasury website.
Gambashidze, according to the United States, is the founder of the Moscow company “Agency for Social Design” (ASP), Tupikin is the general director and owner of the Russian group of companies “Structure”. They participated in a “malicious foreign influence campaign at the direction of the Russian presidential administration” by creating websites that imitated those of media outlets and government organizations. Companies were also subject to restrictions.
Tupikin and Gambashidze created a network of more than 60 websites “that posed as legitimate news organizations and used deceptive social media accounts to disseminate information from fake websites,” the Treasury said.
In November 2023 The State Department reportedthat employees of ASP and “Structure” – Ilya Gambashidze, Nikolai Tupikin, director of ASP Andrey Perlajournalist Oleg Yasinsky — coordinated a campaign to manipulate information that was aimed at Latin America.
The agency clarified that the companies were engaged in “promoting Russia (*aggressor country)’s strategic interests in the region at the expense of other countries through open and covert cooperation with local media and influential bloggers to spread disinformation and propaganda.”
On TSA website it is said that since 2001 the company has been engaged in conducting election and PR campaigns, organizing business forums, sociological research, etc. Among its clients are the State Duma, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Russian Railways, Moscow city structures, etc. According to RBC-Companies, its director is Anna Antipova. The Group of Companies “Struktura”, which is headed by Tupikin, has the main activity of developing computer software provision.
RBC turned to the Structure Group for comment and sent a request to the Social Design Agency.
Last December, the United States introduced restrictions against “FSB officer” Ruslan Perepyatko and “IT worker from Syktyvkar” Andrey Korinetswho, according to the American side, participated in hacking activities at least from 2016 to 2020.
Perepyatko was engaged in sending phishing emails from email addresses that imitated mailboxes of technology companies.
They contained a link to malicious domains created by Korinets.
According to the American side, both Russians participated in hacking activities at least from 2016 to 2020. Perepyatko was engaged in sending phishing emails from email addresses that imitated mailboxes of technology companies. They contained a link to malicious domains created by Korinets, there were at least 39 of them in total.
The British National Cyber Security Center described the phishing method used by Center 18 hackers as follows: first, they identified “hooks” for their purposes, that is, topics or problems that were interesting to them; then they created email accounts similar to the victims’ contacts, or fake pages of “experts” on social networks, from which, for example, invitations to conferences or events were sent as “bait.” Moreover, the correspondence could become lengthy in order to gain the trust of the victim. In one of the emails, she received a malicious link, after clicking on which the entered data became compromised. The data allowed attackers to get into the victim’s accounts and steal information from there.
Britain also imposed sanctions against Perepyatko and Korinets. She calls Korinets’s middle name – Alexey Doguzhiev. Both are classified as members of Star Blizzard, a group in which the British government claims the FSB is involved.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said the group had attacked British parliamentarians, officials, think tanks and non-governmental organizations.
