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Fake Activity Markets as Hybrid Threat Vector: Implications for EU Social and Cyber Resilience

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ben FarrandORCiD

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Abstract

Hybrid threats represent a continued challenge to the European Union, combining disinformationcampaigns with cyber-attacks as a means of destabilising the Union and its Member States,undermining legitimacy and public trust. With social media platforms at the centre of disinformationefforts, as well as potential sites for cyber-attack disruption, the ability to control narratives anddisseminate content are essential to hybrid threat actors. Fake Activity Markets (FAMs) are websitesoffering services that can be used to generate fake engagement, in turn allowing for coordinatedinauthentic behaviour online. These websites also constitute a cybersecurity threat in themselves,involved in distributing malware, harvesting user data or comprising information systems. Thisarticle seeks to explore the EU approach to hybrid threats and coordinated inauthentic behaviourusing FAMs as a case study, highlighting the potential threats to the EU’s social and cyber resilienceposed by these actors, the potential regulatory responses, and the ways in which the von der Leyen IICommission’s renewed emphasis on hybrid threats could provide for a more robust ecosystem forcountering coordinated inauthentic behaviour.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Farrand B

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: European Journal of Risk Regulation

Year: 2026

Pages: epub ahead of print

Online publication date: 15/04/2026

Acceptance date: 25/03/2026

Date deposited: 15/04/2026

ISSN (print): 1867-299X

ISSN (electronic): 2190-8249

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2026.10100

DOI: 10.1017/err.2026.10100

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