The recent report from VIGINUM, the French agency tasked with monitoring foreign digital interference, regarding the “Blackcore” operation, has left many analysts scratching their heads. On the surface, the report concludes that the orchestrated disinformation campaign was a failure because the fake accounts employed failed to gain any real traction or persuade the public. However, a deeper look suggests that VIGINUM may have missed the forest for the trees. The actual product being sold by Blackcore is not the ephemeral persuasion of a specific demographic, but rather the sheer resilience of the infrastructure itself—a system designed to absorb the shock of public exposure, pivot, and continue firing.
The Blackcore demo showcased a sophisticated apparatus featuring over 1,600 avatars, but the true utility of the tool lies in its disposability. In the wake of the investigative scrutiny following the May press coverage, the foundation layer of the operation—the fake shell accounts and their corresponding websites—simply evaporated. By demonstrating that a full-scale “takedown” by international authorities did little more than force the operators to delete some shells and reload their tools, the VIGINUM report unwittingly confirms that the system functions exactly as designed. It is not built to be immune to detection; it is built to survive it.
The investigation reaches astonishingly high levels, tracing a chain from the notorious Unit 8200 and the Israeli National Cyber Directorate (INCD) directly to Cygun and Yigal Unna, a former head of Israel’s national cyber agency. VIGINUM goes so far as to include the legal terminology required for prosecution, explicitly labelling the operation an “atteinte aux intérêts fondamentaux de la Nation”—a direct harm to the fundamental interests of the French state. Yet, despite successfully connecting the dots and checking every box required for action, the legal process dead-ends, leaving the public to wonder why such a blatant challenge to sovereignty results in nothing more than a formal report.
The answer lies in the strategic separation of the operation’s layers. While the foundation is illegal and disposable, the top layer is meticulously constructed out of legally registered companies in jurisdictions like the UK and Sweden. By operating through legitimate business entities with named directors, the architects of this system remain shielded behind a thin veneer of corporate legality. When VIGINUM investigators climb to the top of the hierarchy, they find not a rogue state operative, but a registered businessman claiming to sell generic, innocuous marketing software. Because software development is not a criminal act, the law is rendered effectively toothless.
This dynamic is not a modern anomaly but rather the maturation of a century-old industry. The techniques of “manufacturing consent” were formalized in the propaganda offices of World War I, where figures like Edward Bernays learned to apply psychological tactics to civilian populations. When the war ended, these same tactical methodologies were moved from state service to the private sector of Madison Avenue. The modern Israeli model follows a similar trajectory: intelligence operators transition from military service to the private sector, where experience in state-sponsored digital warfare is rebranded and sold to global clients as “marketing” or “security monitoring” tools.
Ultimately, the VIGINUM report—despite its intent to expose and dismantle a threat—serves as an inadvertent advertisement for the product’s durability. There is currently no legal framework capable of prosecuting the transition of foreign intelligence strategy into private, commercial enterprise. As long as the distinction between intelligence operations and corporate software solutions remains blurred, investigators will continue to hit a wall when they reach the top of the hierarchy. The irony, therefore, is absolute: in attempting to document a campaign of digital disinformation, the state has produced a technical manual that inadvertently signals to the world that Israeli-developed, resilient influence systems are open for business.