Russian election interference efforts targeting Harris campaign, Microsoft finds

Russian government-linked efforts to interfere in the upcoming U.S. presidential election have increasingly shifted to target the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, Microsoft reported in findings published Tuesday.

The new effort, which involves spreading fake videos discrediting Harris and her campaign, is the latest foreign interference linked to Russia in recent weeks, and shows a speedy pivot by foreign adversaries to targeting the Harris campaign after she replaced President Joe Biden on the ticket.

Microsoft found evidence that two “Kremlin-aligned” groups have in recent weeks spread videos including those showing Harris supporters attacking supporters of former President Donald Trump, and another video that used an actor to pose as Harris in a fictitious hit-and-run incident. Each of these videos received millions of views, according to Microsoft, and one of the videos was put out through a fake San Francisco news outlet, in an attempt to give the video more credibility.

The groups also posted videos to social media platforms X and Telegram showing a fake New York City billboard with false Harris policies. Microsoft found that this video received more than 100,000 views on X in the first hours after being posted.

The findings from Microsoft were announced two weeks after the Justice Department removed more than 30 websites linked to Russian election influence efforts. Microsoft experts said Tuesday that they’ve already seen efforts by this influence operation to create new sites, and move content there.

“The shift to focusing on the Harris-Walz campaign reflects a strategic move by Russian actors aimed at exploiting any perceived vulnerabilities in the new candidates,” wrote Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, in a blog post on the findings.

Russia is not alone in its activity. Microsoft also saw efforts by a China-linked group, known as Storm-1852, spreading content on social media critical of both Harris and Biden. However, Microsoft found that many of the individuals posting for the group went silent after this content was spotted. Chinese influence groups were identified earlier this month spreading content exploiting divisive issues in U.S. society.

Microsoft warned that this type of activity is likely to continue ahead of November, particularly from Russia, with the company predicting that Moscow will use hacking groups to boost its messages online, which may include propaganda created by artificial intelligence.

This is the latest threat report released by Microsoft in regards to the upcoming U.S. elections. The company last month blamed Iran for targeting a U.S. presidential campaign, which POLITICO reported was Trump’s campaign.