Protect Your Organization From Disinformation Campaigns

Malicious actors have different goals for their disinformation campaigns. Some want to polarize a target audience. Others are hoping to steal customer information or disrupt business operations. Common tactics include:

• Pushing out deepfakes

• Spreading misinformation through social media and fake news websites

• Using GenAI to create disinformation at scale — and spread it before organizations can respond

• Crafting convincing phishing emails

• Exploiting vulnerabilities in workforce collaboration tools and call centers

• Leveraging malware to steal credentials

• Initiating account takeovers

To fight these efforts, organizations need a holistic approach to lower risk, increase transparency and expand assurance capabilities.

Disinformation security requires a cross-functional effort that unites technology, people and processes across executive leadership, security teams, public relations, marketing, finance, human resources, legal counsel and sales.

Alignment is critical because there are no silver-bullet technologies to fully secure any system or process. Instead, organizations should evaluate existing systems, workflows and controls for vulnerabilities related to disinformation attacks and then incorporate relevant mitigation features.

Examples of vulnerable processes and potential mitigations include the following:

Real-time communications. Protect workforce collaboration tools, call centers and mobile phones against synthetic media, like deepfakes.

Third-party platform content. Evaluate content originating outside of the organization for authenticity before taking action.

Claims validation. Monitor content submitted as evidence to support an application or claim for signs that it was artificially generated or manipulated using software tools.

Identity verification. Protect against attempts to bypass biometric authentication using synthetic media, and against combinations of presentation attacks and injection attacks.

Phishing mitigation. Monitor for convincing GenAI-crafted emails that accurately imitate a brand’s identity or key personnel tone.

Account takeover prevention. Prevent adversaries from leveraging malware to steal credentials, then bypassing authentication controls.

Brand impersonation. Scan for attackers impersonating brands to trick customers into performing harmful actions impacting goodwill and reputation.

Social/mass media monitoring. Look for influence operations aimed at swaying public sentiment using harmful narratives.

Deep/dark web monitoring. Monitor bad actors discussing targets and tactics and selling sensitive stolen data such as credentials and identities.

Sentiment manipulation. Protect automated tools from being used to deliver fake engagement.

GenAI provides opportunities for attackers to establish a persistent presence in the enterprise and evade detection. These attacks usually combine fake identities and data with polymorphic techniques to constantly mutate and hide the original malicious algorithm. To take action:

• Assess the new GenAI threat landscape continuously, and prepare for GenAI-borne attacks on IAM trust infrastructure (such as identity impersonation) that can potentially bypass existing IAM controls. Ensure that current identity verification tools can mitigate new threats from fake identities and fake data.

• Differentiate between vendors by focusing on:

  • Features outside of the core identity verification process, such as modern data verification including verifiable credentials

  • Connectivity to data affirmation sources, such as identity graphs and government issuing authorities

• Seek assurance from vendors on their defense against deepfake attacks. Request information on their current experience with the issue, their detection capabilities, and their investment in a forward-looking roadmap to stay abreast of the challenges that deepfakes pose. Be suspicious of any vendors that do not proactively provide you with this information.

• Read the Planning Guide for Cybersecurity Architects to access action plans for disinformation security and other key technology trends impacting cybersecurity. 

Learn more about how Gartner works with technical teams to execute efficiently and drive business results.