Israeli Contractor BlackCore Trains Angolan Officials in Online Influence Operations
What Happened — Israeli influence‑for‑hire firm BlackCore delivered a 14‑week training program to Angolan government officials, teaching them how to create fake social‑media personas, craft pro‑government narratives, and run coordinated advertising campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. The program produced more than 40 pieces of content, with some posts reaching up to 50 000 likes on a platform that has roughly six million active users in Angola.
Why It Matters for Trust & Control Assurance —
- The engagement illustrates a supply‑chain risk where a state relies on an external contractor to conduct information‑operations, a scenario continuous control‑assurance programs are built to detect and document.
- Without documented oversight, the government cannot produce a defensible audit trail that third‑party activities align with legal, ethical, and policy requirements.
- Continuous monitoring of third‑party contracts and deliverables provides the evidence needed for due‑diligence and regulatory readiness.
Who Is Affected — Public‑sector agencies, foreign ministries, and any organization that outsources communications or influence activities to external vendors.
Recommended Actions —
- Inventory all third‑party contracts that involve public messaging, disinformation mitigation, or influence activities.
- Map those contracts to the control objective of “third‑party risk management and oversight” and collect evidence of governance processes (approval, monitoring, termination criteria).
- Implement continuous monitoring of vendor deliverables and public‑facing content to ensure alignment with policy and legal standards. Source: The Record
Technical Notes — The operation leveraged social‑media platform APIs, fabricated personas, and paid advertising to amplify content. No software vulnerability was exploited; the risk stems from the deliberate use of a third‑party influence service. Source: The Record