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Revealed: Russia’s top secret spy school teaching hacking and election meddling (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 month ago by HowRu68@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org
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"Among the core courses is one titled “Defence against technical reconnaissance”. Over 144 hours across two semesters, students are taught the full toolkit of modern hacking, including password attacks, software vulnerabilities and so called trojans – malicious programs disguised as legitimate software that can grant unauthorised access to a system.

To pass the course, students are required to carry out “practical penetration tests”, while one module is devoted entirely to computer viruses. As part of the assessment, they must develop one themselves.

Students are also taught the structure and organisation of US and British military intelligence agencies. Separate sessions cover the use of western intelligence in the war in Ukraine, and the development of enemy reconnaissance and strike drones on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Apart from hacking tasks, the curriculum also covers information warfare. Advanced students must complete a seminar on developing a disinformation campaign, the documents suggest, tasked with creating a social media video using “manipulation, pressure and hidden propaganda”.

Students are taught the mechanics of psychological manipulation and how to impose a “correct” perception of information on an audience."

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[-] northface@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 month ago

Remember, kids - all nations with any kind of intelligence agency to speak of have these training programs, some of them are even openly recruiting. They're not just grabbing computer wizards off the street to serve in their cyber warfare armies anymore (even if that does still happen).

But I guess it's more newsworthy to point at your enemies :-)

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Another teacher mentioned in the documents is Viktor Netyksho, a western-sanctioned major general who commanded Unit 26165 – a hacking group known as Fancy Bear – whose officers were indicted by the US Department of Justice for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

[-] HowRu68@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They have a proper Uni course for this. I dont think we have anything close to that, in Europe? Ofc, our spies are trained as well, afaik that's up to specialised agencies.

[-] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

The west is well ahead of the Russians in these matters in fact. Way way ahead. It's now being automated with chatbots, the internet enshitification is just getting started, social media is going to be a dead internet.

[-] MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago

If the school is top secret...

Why can I see it?

[-] Hapankaali@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Perhaps it's the top school for secret spies.

[-] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

We should also realize that intelligence agencies find criminal organizations, and force them to do things, or else. Any sort of organized crime, hackers, you name it, will be turned to the administration's goals as they are discovered.

this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
82 points (98.8% liked)

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