Ksenia Ermoshina is a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. She holds a PhD in the socio-economy of innovation and defended her thesis in the Center for Sociology of Innovation at the Mines ParisTech in November 2016. Her research focuses on the intersection of infrastructure studies, surveillance studies, science and technology studies, political sociology and usability studies. She analyzes usage of encryption by activists and journalists, especially in high-risk environments, and is generally interested in usability of encryption, as well as in the political economy of privacy and security. She also explores geopolitics of Internet routing in conflict zones.
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Publications
Rivers of Phish
Sophisticated Phishing Targets Russia’s Perceived Enemies Around the Globe
A sophisticated spear phishing campaign has been targeting Western and Russian civil society. In collaboration with Access Now, and with the participation of numerous civil society organizations, we uncover this operation and link it to COLDRIVER, a group attributed by multiple governments to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
By Whose Authority? Pegasus Targeting of Russian & Belarusian-Speaking Opposition Activists and Independent Media in Europe
In a joint investigation with Access Now, we found that seven Russian and Belarusian-speaking independent journalists and opposition activists based in Europe were targeted and/or infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus mercenary spyware.
Not OK on VK
An Analysis of In-Platform Censorship on Russia’s VKontakte
This report examines the accessibility of certain types of content on VK (an abbreviation for “VKontakte”), a Russian social networking service, in Canada, Ukraine, and Russia. Among these countries, we found that Russia had the most limited access to VK social media content, due to the blocking of 94,942 videos, 1,569 community accounts, and 787 personal accounts in the country.
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