Summary
- France’s Viginum has linked BlackCore to alleged digital interference activity affecting Scotland, France, New York, Angola, and Togo.
- The Scottish activity reportedly targeted John Swinney, the SNP, and the Scottish government through coordinated social media accounts.
- The case raises UK and European concerns over election resilience, influence-for-hire services, AI-generated political activity, and attribution standards.
Viginum, France’s digital interference watchdog, has linked Israeli firm BlackCore to suspected online influence activity targeting political debate in Scotland, putting a UK election environment inside a wider European investigation into foreign digital interference.
The French agency’s technical work forms part of its assessment of an information operation it calls Rokh Solis, which it says met the criteria for foreign digital interference during France’s March 2026 municipal elections. French officials have also connected BlackCore-linked activity to other jurisdictions, including Scotland, New York, Angola, and Togo.
In Scotland, reporting based on Viginum’s findings says the activity targeted First Minister John Swinney, the Scottish National Party, and the Scottish government during the 2026 Scottish election period. The operation reportedly involved coordinated proxy accounts on X, with posts directed at Scottish political figures and institutions.
The public record remains incomplete. Viginum has linked technical indicators to BlackCore, and French officials have asked Israel for explanations and assistance. The agency has not publicly identified who commissioned the activity, whether any state body directed it, or whether the same sponsor sat behind all of the campaigns it described. Israel’s embassy in Paris has rejected any suggestion that Israel intended to interfere in French politics and said it was awaiting details from the French probe.
Attribution in this case needs careful treatment. The available evidence points towards a private influence capability allegedly operating across borders, not a settled public attribution of state direction. BlackCore has been described in reporting as a firm that previously marketed influence and cyber capabilities, but its current corporate status, ownership, client base, and operational tasking remain unclear.
The UK exposure extends beyond Scottish party politics. Election security is often managed across platform moderation, intelligence warnings, political-party cyber hygiene, law enforcement, and public communication. Activity of the type described by Viginum adds a harder layer: private operators that may combine account infrastructure, synthetic amplification, political targeting, and jurisdictional distance.
That operating model sits between cyber operations, disinformation, political campaigning, and foreign interference law. It also complicates defensive work for electoral authorities and political parties. Where influence activity is routed through commercial providers, shell infrastructure, and disposable accounts, the defensive problem becomes less about one hostile state campaign and more about a market for manipulation.
AI-generated or AI-assisted political activity can create pressure without relying on a spectacular fake video or a convincing deepfake. Mass-produced comments, replies, and engagement patterns can distort the perceived public mood, consume campaign resources, and make normal debate harder to interpret.
UK institutions must manage this across a fragmented operating environment. National security responsibility sits with the UK government, while devolved political debate, platform activity, party operations, and local campaign communications sit across several actors. That fragmentation can create gaps in visibility, response thresholds, and public explanation.
France has put more detail into the public domain than many governments do during interference investigations. When foreign digital activity targets domestic democratic debate, public confidence depends on careful attribution, clear limits on what is known, and enough technical transparency to distinguish evidence from allegation.
