A research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has identified more than 24,000 foreign-linked accounts that posted comments deemed to be aimed at fueling political division on Korea’s largest news portal, using an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that can also explain the basis for its assessments. The accounts did not focus on a particular political party or ideology, but instead posted messages targeting both conservative and liberal politicians, including former and incumbent presidents, in ways to amplify divisions and confrontation, raising suspicions that they may have been linked to foreign influence operations. The team, comprised of professors Lee Won-jae, Cha Mee-young and Oh Hae-yun will present their research titled “Cross-National Information Attacks: A Two-Decade Analysis of Troll Behavior in Korea” at USENIX Security Symposium 2026 on Thursday, according to KAIST. The research was co-authored by doctoral student Kim Jae-hong and master’s student Kim Hyeon-seung, and joined by Thorsten Holz, a scientific director at the Max
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