Eliot Higgins

Eliot Higgins

Eliot Higgins is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Bellingcat, the investigative platform that has helped pioneer modern open-source intelligence and digital verification methods. He first gained international recognition through his early work analysing weapons use in the Syrian conflict under the pseudonym “Brown Moses“, before establishing Bellingcat in 2014 following the downing of…

Natalie Martin

Natalie Martin

Dr. Natalie Martin is an Assistant Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, where she has been based since 2019. Before entering academia, she worked extensively in journalism as a reporter for the Nottingham Evening Post, Leicester Mercury, Press Association, and Raymonds Press Agency, and later as a…

A detailed close-up of social media icons on a smartphone screen, including Facebook and Twitter.

Disinformation, Epistemic Fragmentation, and the Future of Trust in Digital Societies

21st-century digital transformations of the information environment have reconfigured how knowledge is produced, validated, and contested. Disinformation is no longer confined to discrete falsehoods or orchestrated state propaganda; it now operates within a participatory and highly networked ecosystem in which information is continuously generated, amplified, and recursively reshaped across digital platforms. In the United States,…

US treasury department hack and international risk

US Treasury Department Hacked: China’s Cyber Espionage and Global Risks

In the early days of December 2024, as the world prepared for the holiday season, a silent storm was brewing within the digital corridors of the US Treasury Department. Unbeknownst to its officials, a sophisticated cyber intrusion was underway, orchestrated by a state-sponsored actor from China. This breach would soon be recognised as a “major…

Information security management systems and risk mitigation

ISO 27001 and information security management ISO 27001 is an international standard that outlines the requirements for an information security management system (ISMS). It helps organizations ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their information assets by establishing and maintaining appropriate safeguards. One of the key aspects of ISO 27001 is its focus on risk…