LIGHTNING TALK - What Germany Tells Us About IO

LIGHTNING TALK - What Germany Tells Us About IO

Ksenia Iliuk and Roman Osadchuk, LetsData

In September 2026, Germany held three regional parliamentary elections in two weeks, and threat actors threw everything at the wall at once. LetsData tracked more than 30 influence operation incidents involving over 100 TTPs: Russia’s exposed infrastructure activated immediately, templated personas seeded Doppelgänger-like clones of WELT and DER SPIEGEL within sixty seconds, staged videos consistent with Storm-1516 and Matryoshka followed, an Iranian state outlet surfaced in German-language feeds, and a casino-affiliate scheme used AI-generated party leaders to sell a gambling link. This talk breaks down what they threw, what landed, and what stuck. Last year we brought you Moldova; this year, Germany shows whether adversaries have evolved.