Most cybersecurity leaders recognize the usefulness of data, but data is merely information. What if the information you've been given is actually false? Or it is deception? What methods does your cybersecurity program use to determine what is real and what isn't?
Ian Hill, Global Director of Cyber Security with Royal BAM Group defined misinformation as "inaccurate or purposely misleading information." This might be anything from misinformation to deceptive advertising to satire carried too far. So, while disinformation isn't meant to be destructive, it can cause harm.
The ideas, tactics, and actions used in cybersecurity and misinformation attacks are very similar. Misinformation takes advantage of our cognitive biases and logical fallacies, whereas cyberattacks target computer systems. Information that has been distorted, miscontextualized, misappropriated, deep fakes, and cheap fakes are all used in misinformation attacks. To wreak even more harm, nefarious individuals combine both attacks.
Misinformation has the potential to be more damaging than viruses, worms, and other malware. Individuals, governments, society, and corporations can all be harmed by misinformation operations to deceive and damage people.
The attention economy and advertisement-centric business models to launch a sophisticated misinformation campaign that floods the information channels the truth at unprecedented speed and scale. Understanding the agent, message, and interpreter of a specific case of information disorder is critical for organizations to stop it. Find out who's behind it — the "agent" — and what the message is that's being sent. Understanding the attack's target audience — the interpreter — is just as critical.
Misconceptions and deceptions from basic phishing scams, cyberattacks have progressed. Misinformation and disinformation are cybersecurity risks for four reasons, according to Disinfo. EU. They're known as the 4Ts:
- Terrain, or the infrastructure that disseminates falsehoods
- Misinformation tactics, or how the misinformation is disseminated
- The intended victims of the misinformation that leads to cyberattacks, known as targets.
- Temptations, or the financial motivations for disseminating false information in cyberattacks.
Employees who are educated on how threat actors, ranging from an amateur hacker to a nation-state criminal, spread false information will be less likely to fall for false narratives and harmful untruths. It is now up to cybersecurity to distinguish between the true and the fraudulent.
