Groups related to the Russian and Belarusian governments are using a bevy of shady cyber techniques to focus on Ukrainians on Facebook, in accordance with a new report from the social community’s guardian firm Meta. The firm notes that in simply the previous few days, it’s seen an uptick in assaults concentrating on public figures, army members, and common civilians as Russian forces lay siege to their nation.

These schemes ranged from unhealthy actors making an attempt to hack the Facebook pages of Ukrainian officers to making a community of pretend accounts posing as journalists, editors and shops. The sham journalists all pushed speaking factors about Ukraine being a “failed state.” That community, in accordance with the report, was made up of roughly 40 faux accounts operating Facebook Pages and Groups throughout Facebook and Instagram. The impersonators additionally maintained a facet presence on different platforms like YouTube and Twitter so the imposters may “appear more authentic” and never like such apparent fakes.

Well, ultimately the accounts have been discovered—however as Facebook Security Policy lead Nathaniel Gleicher stated on a name with reporters in regards to the findings, “We know that determined adversaries like this will keep trying to come back.” During the continuing investigation into this phony ring of reporters, the corporate says it discovered hyperlinks between these accounts and one other cadre of fake information pages that have been taken down back in April, 2020.

Meta additionally famous tried account takeovers by a hacking group known as “Ghostwriter,” which has been on the cybersecurity group’s radar for the reason that summer time of 2020, when it was caught hijacking outstanding accounts in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland to advertise anti-NATO propaganda. In this case, Meta says the group was concentrating on Ukrainian Facebook accounts in an try to advertise YouTube clips “portraying Ukrainian troops as weak and surrendering to Russia.”

Aside from the faux journos and pretend YouTube movies, Meta additionally says it caught a community of roughly 200 accounts—all operated from Russia—that have been submitting false stories in opposition to posts from Ukrainian customers, accusing them of hate speech, bullying, and extra, all in an try to get these posts pulled from the platform as Russia’s invasion approached.

“The people behind this activity relied on fake, authentic, and duplicate accounts to submit hundreds—in some cases, thousands—of complaints against their targets through our abuse reporting tools,” the report reads. “Many of this network’s accounts were detected and disabled by our automated systems. Their coordinated reporting increased in mid-February, just before the invasion of Ukraine.”

It’s unlikely that this onslaught of spammy, scammy techniques goes to cease anytime quickly, which is why Meta recommends that customers in Ukraine and Russia “use caution when accepting friend requests and opening links and files from people they don’t know,” and why Gizmodo recommends studying our personal detailed information to not getting hacked. And please, for the love of god, use two-factor authentication.