On the eve of one of the most contentious United States midterm elections in history, allegations of Russian hacking have once again emerged.
Last week US magazine Vanity Fair published excerpts from a book alleging financial links involving US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and bank accounts in Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
The claims are based on hacked phone information obtained through a cyber operation involving Dutch spies, who allegedly gained access to Kushner’s iPhone after a Russian operative revealed the country’s intelligence agency — the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) — had screenshots from Kushner’s iPhone on its server in 2017.
Kushner has denied the claims, describing them as “completely insane” in a post on X.
Most in the security community would be unsurprised to hear allegations the GRU accessed Kushner’s phone.
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Ciaran Martin, the former CEO of the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre, the country’s technical authority on cyber security, says Russian cyber operations, including misinformation and disinformation campaigns have been targeting Western democracies since 2016, although there had been a handful of incidents before that.
READ MORE
Among the most prominent examples, several Russian intelligence officers were charged in the US with allegedly hacking into Democratic Party systems with the intent of interfering with the 2016 presidential election, in which Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The hacking was accompanied by a separate online influence campaign, in which Russian-backed operatives sought to undermine Clinton and deepen political divisions through targeted advertisements and social media activity.
This month UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham again drew attention to Russian interference after telling The Rest is Politics podcast it was “clear” that Russia interfered with the Brexit referendum, also held in 2016.
Most experts SBS News spoke to said countries, including Australia, are not doing enough to counter the threats posed by cyber operations, not just from Russia but also from countries such as China, Iran and North Korea.
A new front in geopolitical conflict
Some believe Russia has been escalating its cyber activities as part of a “hybrid warfare” campaign that blends military capability with other tactics such as cyberattacks, misinformation, economic pressure, sabotage and political interference.
This month, the director general of the UK national security agency MI5, Ken McCallum, revealed the agency is devoting more resources to countering state threats in 2026 than during the Cold War.
In his annual threat update on 13 October, McCallum noted there had been charges, prosecutions and convictions connected to Russia, Iran and China.
“We’ve seen hackers attacking energy and water infrastructure, including in the US. European defence companies targeted by arson attacks and even violent intent. Here in the UK, a destructive cyber attack on an energy generator,” he said in his address.
MI5 director general Ken McCallum revealed the agency is allocating more resources to counter state threats in 2026 than it did during the Cold War. Source: AAP / Jonathan Brady/Pool/PA
This year Germany blamed Russia for a drone attack on one of its airports as well as suspected sabotage attempts on its power grid, and a suspected arson attack on a defence manufacturer.
Poland has also linked Russia to an explosion on its train network last year and a shopping centre fire in 2024.
Nathan Gill, a former politician and ally of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, was jailed last year for accepting bribes to make pro-Russian statements in the European parliament.
Martin believes there’s a “high tempo of risky and difficult behaviour” from Russia.
The University of Oxford professor says Russia’s appetite for provocation is much greater than that of any other adversary in recent years, adding that cyber and digital provide the opportunity to do things without the same level of physical risk.
He notes hybrid warfare activities are attractive because they sit below the threshold that would generally trigger an armed response.
You’re not going to send your young men to die over … some sneaky stuff on the internet [or] a cyber attack on an energy grid.
“That’s the cleverness of it.”
Professor Matthew Warren, director of the RMIT Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation, says information warfare is “poison” to democracies as people make decisions based on false information and can be manipulated into outcomes that benefit adversaries.
He says he wouldn’t be surprised to see Russian efforts ramp up, especially with the French presidential elections scheduled for early next year, as well as state elections in some parts of Germany.
Last month the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland, a party whose members have faced scrutiny over alleged links to Russia, came first in elections in two German states.
Warren says the rise of populist parties has the potential to destabilise countries, which could serve Russia’s interests.
While Russian influence campaigns could also emerge around the US midterms next week, Warren points out that Trump appears to be very unpopular and that this could be difficult for foreign actors to turn around.
Threat to democracy
Strategic analyst and co-founder of policy intelligence platform Statekraft, Lesley Seebeck, who has worked for Australian government departments including the Bureau of Meteorology, says Russian operatives generally look for activities with the potential to tip votes towards a certain outcome.
“They will do so for the left or the right, [using] whichever tool comes to hand … for the general purpose of causing disruption, tumult [and] uncertainty in societies,” she tells SBS News.
Seebeck says tactics such as the use of social media as an echo chamber and the harassment of individuals online are also being exported as a form of “techno- authoritarianism” that helps regimes to suppress their populations.
She points to the online harassment of certain communities, including India’s alleged targeting of Sikh activists and minorities in Canada, and the targeting of Iranian and Chinese diaspora communities by their governments.
Because governments are less able to respond [to these types of activities], people get more dissatisfied in democracies [and] get more dissatisfied with existing governments.
But Martin says it’s important to remember that while hostile powers can amplify social tensions “this only works … if there’s existing divisions to exploit”.
While authorities should be “realistically concerned” about future Russian interference, he’s hopeful that work to strengthen social resilience may dull its impact.
Martin points to a 2023 deepfake audio recording that purported to show London mayor Sadiq Khan saying a pro-Palestinian march should take priority over Armistice Day commemorations. The recording was widely debunked, and he says it had “no real impact” because people were warned it was fake by Conservative politician Tom Tugendhat.
London mayor Sadiq Khan was the target of a deepfake clip in 2023. Source: Getty / Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
He contrasts this with the response to the 2016 US presidential election when media reported the Clinton hack that saw around 150,000 Democrat emails published on sites like WikiLeaks. Martin argues there was insufficient consideration of the fact that the material had been obtained through hacking by a hostile foreign power. Trump even encouraged Russia to release more emails, turning it into a “partisan football”, he says.
The impact of interference
All the experts SBS News spoke to agree it’s difficult to say with certainty whether misinformation or cyber warfare has changed electoral outcomes.
“Even the successes, you can’t unambiguously and incontrovertibly link them to Russian interference because at the end of the day, you don’t know why people voted as they did,” Martin says.
But Martin believes Russia was able to sow discontent during the 2016 US presidential election.
I think the measure of success for the Russians in America in 2016 is the fact that America’s still arguing about it.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks as then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens during a presidential debate in 2016. Source: AAP / Rick T Wilking/Pool/AP
He notes a candidate considered more sympathetic to Russia, Robert Fico, was returned to power as Slovakia’s prime minister in 2023 after his opponent was featured in a deepfake audio clip circulated during an electoral silence period, although its influence on the result has not been established.
Russian influence operations were also alleged to have impacted the presidential elections in Romania in 2024, which were later annulled.
Martin, who was head of cyber security for the UK during the Brexit referendum, says he doesn’t believe the Russians succeeded in interfering in the 2016 vote, which saw the UK vote to leave the European Union, despite “rudimentary attempts” at disinformation campaigns.
An intelligence and security committee report into Russian interference in UK elections and referendums, published in 2020, did not make any conclusions on whether Russian activity had influenced the Brexit referendum. However, it criticised the government for a lack of assessment of the attempts after the vote.
How to make communities more resilient
Sven Herpig, lead for cybersecurity and emerging threats at European technology policy think tank interface, says Australia has a long way to go in securing its digital infrastructure against cyber operations but adds so do most other countries in the world.
He says it’s very difficult to apprehend the criminals and intelligence agents behind operations but authorities should keep an eye on influence campaigns and ensure misinformation and disinformation is debunked. He also notes the importance of maintaining back-ups and non-electronic voting records, so election results can be independently checked and recounted if necessary.
“When you cannot guarantee anymore to your public … that your elections are secure and safe, you have a real problem,” Herpig tells SBS News.
READ MORE
Warren says information warfare often aims to discourage voters away from the democratic process and this makes it potentially less effective in Australia, which has a compulsory voting system.
Australia’s geographic isolation has also protected it from being drawn into wars historically, but Warren says this won’t shield it from information warfare.
Certainly Australia has the potential to be very vulnerable.
He doesn’t think Australia has yet accepted the need to take the risks seriously, pointing out that other countries have launched national awareness campaigns.
The UK has launched the National Protective Security Authority to help businesses and organisations protect themselves against national security threats; while Lithuania, Latvia and Finland are investing in initiatives to help people recognise disinformation.
“Countries are actually taking the view of preparing their whole populations to deal with information warfare as a threat, the same way [as] kinetic warfare’s being dealt with, or propaganda,” Warren says.
Martin agrees and says the need for critical thinking is even more crucial with the rise of AI, which can boost the capabilities of operators who may not have been particularly effective in the past, making it more difficult to recognise content that is fake.
Technical measures such as watermarking information so people can see its origin could also be helpful, he says, as well as cracking down on organised troll farms.
‘Make the costs higher’
Herpig says Australia must pay closer attention to China’s activities, pointing to a statement from Japan’s National Police Agency in January 2025 that said it had linked more than 200 cyberattacks over five years (between 2019 to 2024) to a Chinese hacking group called MirrorFace. It said the attacks were aimed at stealing data on national security and advanced technology.
If I was in Australia, I would be zero worried about Russia and I would be very worried about China when it comes [cyberactivity and] election interference.
” We’re worried right now about Russian cyber operations for good reasons, but what we’re overlooking is how much China has built a huge ecosystem that enables it to run countless parallel campaigns against targets in the entire world … with different levels of control.”
Herpig expects there will be more cyber operations, including disinformation and influence campaigns, ahead of election events, not just from foreign intelligence agencies but also from lobbyists and interest groups based in the country.
“Where I think we’re falling short is not the lack of policies or regulation, not even the lack of budget [most of the time], but the lack of implementation [of basic IT security measures],” he says.
READ MORE
Seebeck would like to see stronger safe harbour provisions in Australian cyber legislation allowing businesses to share information about cyber breaches with government agencies without fear of prosecution.
She would also like to see more people trained in cyber security, potentially through more government subsidies for training courses.
She says civilian cyber infrastructure should be bolstered to make it more resilient and ensure operations can continue if parts of the system are impacted.
The US has pioneered tools and platforms to debunk misinformation campaigns since 2016, and Herpig stresses governments must continually develop responses to those carrying out attacks.
“You will not convince [countries like] Russia to stop cyber operations … but you can make the costs higher for them, and that’s the least we should do.”
For the latest from SBS News, download our app and subscribe to our newsletter.