Google's Threat Analysis Group has warned the US Presidential campaigns of both major parties' presumptive nominees that Chinese and Iranian threat groups are targeting campaign staffers' personal email accounts. Google's Shane Huntley tweeted the findings yesterday, and subsequently clarified that the threat groups in question are China's APT31 (Hurricane Panda) and Iran's APT35 (Charming Kitten). The Wall Street Journal reports that Hurricane Panda is interested in the Biden campaign; Charming Kitten has targeted the Trump campaign. Both efforts are believed to have been unsuccessful.
The Washington Post says the two groups have different interests: Hurricane Panda is collecting intelligence on former Vice President Biden's views (and those of his staffers) while Charming Kitten is interested in undermining President Trump's re-election. Russia is also engaged with the election, but neither Iran nor China appear to be following "Russia's playbook," the Post observes.
US Attorney General Barr yesterday said, in brief remarks about ongoing civil unrest, that "We are also seeing foreign actors playing all sides to exacerbate the violence." The social media study group Graphika independently described influence campaigns by Russia, China, and Iran, all of which seek to further their agenda by, respectively, drawing attention to fissures in American society, discrediting US criticism of human rights violations, and undermining the legitimacy of US-led sanctions.
AFP outlines an ongoing regional disinformation campaign against Qatar.
Facebook's long-anticipated labeling of posts by state-controlled media began yesterday. The labels appear in the "Ad Library Page view, on Pages, and in the Page Transparency section."