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How Fake is our news?
Fake news and disinformation is not a new phenomenon, and it will no be going
away anytime soon and indeed the continuing digitization and move to less
traditional media sources is only likely to accelerate the issue further
Hardly a day goes
by without media
and sometimes
government claims
that Russia has been utilising
social media tools to spread
fake news and misinformation
to influence everything from
elections, mining approvals and
even Brexit.
But Russia is just the tip of
the iceberg for this issue
with regular misinformation
campaigns and attacks
observed worldwide from
activists, political and business
rivalry, and even kids looking
for kicks.
But how hard is it to
spread this sort of misinformation?
Well it appears to be very easy
indeed with easily available
tools and services which actors
can buy or rent as needed to
get up and running quickly.
The barrier to entry is very low
indeed.
This means that for example
twitter accounts can suddenly
come out of nowhere and
attract tens of thousands of
followers and retweets in a
matter of hours associated
with particular misinformation
campaigns.
For example, in October 2016
an ideologically motivated
hacktivist group called
Anonymous Poland published
documents it claimed it had
stolen from a breach of the
Bradley Foundation, a U.S.-
charity. Over the ensuing
week almost 15,000 nearly
identical tweets posted by
approximately 12,000 Twitter
accounts, featuring links to
tweets about the Anonymous
Poland breach were identified.
Disinformation campaigns can
take many forms; however,
they generally follow three
distinct stages: 1) Creation, 2)
Publication and 3) Circulation.
For each stage, there are
countless online tools,
software and platforms to allow
attackers to create credible
and effective disinformation
campaigns.
In recent years, there has
been a growth in toolkits
and services designed to
propagate the spread of
misinformation – available
for just 7$ – that are aimed
specifically at causing financial
and reputational damage for
companies and governments
There is a myriad of
drivers that will affect how
disinformation campaigns
evolve in the upcoming years.
Based on the drivers and
assumptions shown below, it’s
almost certain that disinformation
will continue; the geopolitical
situation shows no signs of easing,
and there is plenty of sociocultural
unease to exploit. While there will
be continued efforts to remove
suspicious content from social
media sites, the low barriers to
entry and innovation of threat
actors will lead to an increase in
disinformation. Moreover, this is
not just a risk for political parties
in 2018; disinformation affects
businesses and individuals too.
So how do we combat this
sort of threat?
There are some steps businesses
can take to lessen the risk of
disinformation impacting their
businesses. These include:
• Combat domain spoofing
- organizations should proactively
monitor for the registration of
malicious domains and have a
defined process of dealing with
infringements when they occur.
An agile and scalable takedown
capability is critical for combating
domain spoofing
• Combat the ‘bots’ - monitor
social media for brand mentions
and seek to detect the ‘bots’
though it’s not always immediately
obvious, there are often clues
such as looking at the age of the
account, the content being posted,
and the number of friends and
followers
• Monitor forums for
information that could manipulate
the share price - organizations
should search for mentions of their
brand or staff across forums, which
could be instances of malicious
actors spreading disinformation
• Keep an eye on
trending activity – monitor
trending activity as it relates
to an organization’s digital
footprint and potentially
identify disinformation activity
Fake news and disinformation
is not a new phenomenon,
and it will not be going away
anytime soon and indeed
the continuing digitization
and move to less traditional
media sources is only likely to
accelerate the issue further. The
blurring between truth and fiction
is often difficult to ascertain but
businesses need to ensure they
do all they can to monitor and
protect their own reputations to
ensure next time it is not them in
the crosshairs of the attacker.
Rick Holland is the Vice President of Strategy at Digital Shadows. Holland has more than
14 years experience working in information security. Prior to joining Digital Shadows, he
was a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, providing strategic
guidance on security architecture, operations, and data privacy. He also served as an
intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army. He is currently the co-chair of the SANS Cyber
Threat Intelligence Summit, and holds a B.S. in business administration with an MIS
concentration from the University of Texas at Dallas.
34 Intelligent SME December 2017
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