Microsoft: Russian agents trying to infiltrate gaming communities

Have you joined an online gaming community chat and noticed that someone is talking about Russia in an unusual amount? Speaking at Semafor’s World Economic Summit, Microsoft president Brad Smith said in a statement that security analysis teams had detected Russian agents trying to share information in gaming communities.

The games are in danger of Russian agents

Smith continued, “We advise governments on this. You know, this Wagner Group, Russian intelligence, and in part they are using these gaming communities to circulate information.” The Wagner group is a private military organization led by an ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, working closely with the Russian government “to be considered a de facto unit of the Ministry of Defense or the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.”

Confidential military information leaked on Discord

Smith said it was important to stop these interferences with gaming communities as they could spread propaganda and misinformation about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Smith’s comments came shortly after a series of US intelligence documents surfaced on a Minecraft Discord server that landed on Twitter, 4chan and Telegram. The documents contained information about the US support to Ukraine and the Wagner Group’s operations in Africa. There was also classified information about Israel, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea. Chris Meagher, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said some documents “seem to have been changed”.

FBI agents have since arrested 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard Jack Douglas Teixeira for the unauthorized acquisition, storage and transmission of classified national defense information. Teixeira had the highest level of security clearance issued by the government for top secret information. The New York Times named Teixeira the leader of a Discord group called “Thug Shaker Central”, which consists of about 20 to 30 young men. Allegedly, Teixeira began sharing classified documents with the group in the past few months. The NYT reports that another member shared some of these on a public forum.