A Framework for Attribution of Information Influence Operations

Attribution of information influence operations sits at the intersection of intelligence practice and public accountability — a space that lacks agreed methodology and is prone to both overclaiming and underperformance. This report, produced by the Lund University Psychological Defence Research Institute under ADAC.io, updates the NATO Stratcom CoE / Hybrid CoE IIO Attribution Framework with new analytical cases and practical guidance. The Doppelgänger, LVU, and Paperwall operations serve as structured case studies, giving readers a concrete sense of how the framework performs against operations that vary in sophistication, attribution clarity, and platform footprint.

What distinguishes this contribution from earlier attribution guidance is the explicit attention it pays to method plurality: the report reviews approaches used by Microsoft, Google, EUvsDisinfo, and Debunk.org, mapping both their OSINT foundations and their proprietary data dependencies. This is analytically honest in a field where differences in access to platform data often determine whether attribution is achievable at all. For practitioners in government or civil society attribution teams, the framework offers a common reference that can support cross-institutional comparisons — a genuinely useful function as EU member states work to coordinate FIMI incident reporting.