false flag

An operation planned so that it appears to have been carried out by someone else.

The CIA glossary defines a false flag as an operation designed to look like the work of someone other than the real perpetrator. A related concept is black propaganda, which cannot be traced back to its source.^1,2

An officially attributed example: according to the UK government’s statement of 19 October 2020, during the attack on the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang the GRU cyber unit (GTsST, military unit 74455) tried to pose as North Korean and Chinese hackers. The Olympic Destroyer malware was designed to wipe data and disable computers; the NCSC assessed with high confidence (95%+) that the GTsST was responsible. Tactics of this kind make attribution harder.³