# Technique T0146: Account Asset **Summary**: An Account is a user-specific profile that allows access to the features and services of an online platform, typically requiring a username and password for authentication. **Tactic**: TA15 Establish Assets | Associated Technique | Description | | --------- | ------------------------- | | Incident | Descriptions given for this incident | | -------- | -------------------- | | [I00118 ‘War Thunder’ players are once again leaking sensitive military technology information on a video game forum](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00118.md) | In an effort to prove that the developers behind a popular multiplayer vehicle combat game had made a mistake, a player went ahead and published classified British military documents about one of the real-life tanks featured in the game.

This truly bizarre turn of events recently occurred in the public forum for War Thunder, a free-to-player multiplayer combat sim featuring modern land, air, and sea craft. Getting a small detail wrong on a piece of equipment might not be a big deal for the average gamer, but for the War Thunder crowd it sure as hell is. With 25,000 devoted players, the game very much bills itself as the military vehicle combat simulator.

A player, who identified himself as a British tank commander, claimed that the game’s developers at Gaijin Entertainment had inaccurately represented the Challenger 2 main battle tank used by the British military.

The self-described tank commander’s bio listed his location as Tidworth Camp in Wiltshire, England, according to the UK Defense Journal, which reported that the base is home to the Royal Tank Regiment, which fields Challenger 2 tanks.

The player, who went by the handle Pyrophoric, reportedly shared an image on the War Thunder forum of the tank’s specs that were pulled from the Challenger 2’s Army Equipment Support Publication, which is essentially a technical manual.

[...]

A moderator for the forum, who’s handle is “Templar_”, explained that the developer had removed the material after they received confirmation from the Ministry of Defense that the document is still in fact classified.


A user of War Thunder’s forums posted confidential documents to win an argument (T0089.001: Obtain Authentic Documents, T0146: Account Asset, T0097.105: Military Personnel Persona, T0115: Post Content, T0143.001: Authentic Persona, T0151.009: Legacy Online Forum Platform). | | [I00125 The Agency](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00125.md) | In 2014 threat actors attributed to Russia spread the false narrative that a local chemical plant had leaked toxic fumes. This report discusses aspects of the operation:

[The chemical plant leak] hoax was just one in a wave of similar attacks during the second half of last year. On Dec. 13, two months after a handful of Ebola cases in the United States touched off a minor media panic, many of the same Twitter accounts used to spread the Columbian Chemicals hoax began to post about an outbreak of Ebola in Atlanta. [...] Again, the attention to detail was remarkable, suggesting a tremendous amount of effort. A YouTube video showed a team of hazmat-suited medical workers transporting a victim from the airport. Beyoncé’s recent single “7/11” played in the background, an apparent attempt to establish the video’s contemporaneity. A truck in the parking lot sported the logo of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Accounts which previously presented as Louisiana locals were repurposed for use in a different campaign, this time presenting as locals to Atlanta, a place over 500 miles away from Louisiana and in a different timezone (T0146: Account Asset, T0097.101: Local Persona, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona, T0151.008: Microblogging Platform, T0150.004: Repurposed Asset).

A video was created which appeared to support the campaign’s narrative (T0087: Develop Video-Based Content), with great attention given to small details which made the video appear more legitimate. | | Counters | Response types | | -------- | -------------- | DO NOT EDIT ABOVE THIS LINE - PLEASE ADD NOTES BELOW