Jim Walter

Hactivism and War: Malicious Activism and Nation-State Fronts in Times of Conflict – A Clarifying Discussion

This session explores how malicious hacktivist activity is being strategically leveraged by nation-states and mercenary groups to obscure intent, destabilize targets, and weaponize public narratives. Through technical case studies and geopolitical analysis, we’ll examine how these actors blend ransomware, data leaks, DDoS, and psychological operations under activist façades—creating significant challenges for attribution, response, and long-term threat modeling. We will also review existing, and still highly-prolific, traditional hacktivist groups, and their role in the current landscape.

Jim Walter is a Senior Threat Researcher at SentinelOne focusing on evolving trends, actors, and tactics within the thriving ecosystem of cybercrime and crimeware. He specializes in the discovery and analysis of emerging cybercrime “services” and evolving communication channels leveraged by mid-level criminal organizations. Jim joined SentinelOne following ~4 years at a security start-up, also focused on malware research and organized crime. Previously, he spent over 17 years at McAfee/Intel running their Threat Intelligence and Advanced Threat Research teams.