Summary Threat Type Vulnerabilities Surface Matrix Motivations Kill Chain Recommendations Appendix
Print Report

Synthetic media image of Donald Trump pictured with a group of African American women and men

Submitted File

On November 29, 2023, Mark Kaye, a Florida-based conservative online influencer and podcast host posted on Facebook "🚨 BLACK LIVES MATTER PERFORM CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! 🚨" The post included an AI generated image of former president Donald Trump with a number of African women and men in the context of the of a Christmas Party. The post received over 1,000 likes, 173 comments and 170 reposts.

Threat Level

Low

Moderate

Elevated

High


Authenticity Spectrum

Real

Suspicious

Likely Fake

Fake



Deepfake Attack Profile

Credibility

Moderate

The more synthetic media is perceived to be legitimate and authoritative, the content is more likely to be trusted, persuasive, and acted upon.

Interactivity

Low

Synthetic media can range from non-interactive, not ongoing, or not consistent (low) to interactive, ongoing, and consistent (high).

Familiarity

High

Synthetic media can range from very recognizable and familiar (high) or hardly (or not) recognizable and familiar (low).

Evocation

Moderate

Synthetic media can range from evoking a significant affective response (high) to barely or not at all eliciting an affective reaction.

Distribution

Mediumcast

Synthetic media can range from broadcast to a wide human audience or technical security measures (high) to a narrow, specific human audience or tailored technical security measure (low).


Deepfake & Synthetic Media Analysis Framework (DSMAF) Assessment™. The media submitted for this Deepfake Threat Intelligence Report (DTIR) was assessed with the Psyber Labs Deepfake & Synthetic Media Analysis Framework (DSMAF)™, a set of psychological, sociological and affective influence factors and sub-facets, that when holistically applied, inform the motivations, intentions, and targeting process in synthetic media and deepfake propagation. The findings of each DSMAF factor is described in respective sections and graphically plotted on the Deepfake Risk Factor Radar. The combined DSMAF findings are given a Synthetic Media Threat Level (Low, Medium, Elevated, or High) for actionable awareness and risk mitigation.

Threat Type

Threat Type is the category of intended purpose and the risk proposed by the synthetic media or deepfake. Often, cyber deception efforts through deepfake content are multi-purpose, and a result, are categorized with multiple threat types.

Social Contagion

The spread of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and affect through social aggregates from one member to another

Digital Impersonation for Disinformation

Deepfake technology intentionally using the likeness of famous and/or credible authorities in an effort to shape the behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and/or emotions of the target audience

Propaganda

Information, especially of a biased, misleading or non-rational nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view

Political Instigator

The media is intended to serve as a catalyst for political argument, discord and divisiveness.

Fabricated Content

Content created to serve an information or psychological operation purpose.

Deception

Intentional strategy and tactics meant to mislead, misdirect and manipulate the perceptions of a target audience through simulation (showing the false) and/or dissimulation (hiding the real)

Common Cognitive Vulnerabilities & Exposures™ (CCVE)

Common Cognitive Vulnerabilities & Exploits (CCVEs) are perceptual distortions, cognitive biases, heuristics misapplied, or any mental process that exposes a person to a potential manipulation by an adversary.

Confirmation Bias

Category: Cognitive Processing

The tendency to seek information that confirms or supports a predetermined position or conclusion.

Halo Effect

Category: Interpersonal Biases

In assessing other people, it is the tendency for a person’s positive trait to be generalized to possess other positive traits.

Liking

Category: Social Norm Vulnerabilities

Tendency to do favors for people whom we like. Can be exploited by establishing rapport with target before asking for action.

Authority

Category: Social Norm Vulnerabilities

Tendency to comply with authority figures (usually legal or expert authorities). Exploitable by assuming the persona or impersonating an authority figure. 

Unity

Category: Social Norm Vulnerabilities

Perceived shared identity based on similarity in a trait, affiliation, or belief. This can be a powerful influence tactic as people tend to be more open to persuasion by someone they identify with.

Desirability Bias

Category: Cognitive Processing

A form of motivated reasoning, this is both a cognitive and social response, in which individuals, consciously or unconsciously, allow emotion-loaded motivational biases affect how new information is perceived. In particular, information is often interpreted to correspond with hope/wants/wishes and information to the contrary is ignored.

Mere Exposure Effect

Category: Cognitive Processing

The Mere Exposure Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals show a preference for things they’re more familiar with. Repeated exposure to a stimulus increases liking and familiarity, even without conscious recognition.


Deepfake Attack Surface & Vectors

As part of the DSMAF criteria, Deepfake Attack Surface & Vectors assesses the intended target; the manner of control, or how the synthetic media is being presented to the target; and medium, or the type of synthetic media being presented to the intended target.


Intended Target

Both humans and automation may be targeted by synthetic media attacks. This criteria references whether the target of the attack was human or automation. The highlighted icon represents the intended target of this submitted media.


Human

Technical

Hybrid

Unknown



Control

A measure of if the attack was constructed by a human or by artificial intelligence. The highlighted icon represents the method of control of this submitted media.


Human

Automation

Hybrid

Unknown



Medium

The medium is the format of the content submitted. Highlighted items represent all of the various formats contained in the submitted content.


Text

Image

Video

Audio

Synthetic Media Exploitation Matrix

The Synthetic Media Exploitation Matrix Is a visual representation of the combined levels of attacker sophistication and maliciousness.

  • Sophistication is a judgment of the level of demonstrated technological prowess and capability involved in the attack.
  • Maliciousness is a conclusion regarding the degree to which the attack was deliberately intended to cause harm.

Sophistication

High

Technical complexity of the atttack.

Sophistication
Maliciousness

Chart Not Available on Printed Version

Maliciousness

High

How damaging the attack was intended to be.



Motivations

Motivations are the underlying activators, purposes or sustained reasons for why the deepfake threat actor sought to create and take the necessary steps to produce and disseminate synthetic media or deepfake content.

The post and image were designed to shape beliefs of the target audience to believe that former President Trump was in attendance at a Christmas party and took a picture with a number of African American attendees. The effort was likely meant to curry favor with the African American community and sway African American votes in favor of Trump.

Deception

Intentional strategy and tactics meant to mislead, misdirect and manipulate the perceptions of a target audience through simulation (showing the false) and/or dissimulation (hiding the real)

Political Tumult

The creator and/or disseminator of the media seeks to create political discord, argumentation and divisiveness.

Influence

Intentional effort to shape the perceptions, decisions, and behaviors of target audiences to achieve specific objectives.

Perception Management

Perception management is the deliberate effort to influence and control the perception of a target audience through strategic use of information, communication, and other practices to shape the way something is observed and interpreted.

The Deepfake Kill Chain™

The Deepfake Kill Chain™ describes the various, distinct, sequential stages of deepfake media creation and dissemination. Understanding these stages, and the adversary’s efficacy in the respective stages not only reveals the adversary’s modus operandi and decision-making process, but when contrasted with the Deepfake & Synthetic Media Analysis Framework™, identifies and elucidates methods of preventing and defending against the adversary’s deepfake attacks.

Motivation

Motivation is the underlying activator, purpose or sustained reasons for why the deepfake threat actor wants to create nefarious synthetic media.

The post and image were designed to shape beliefs of the target audience to believe that former President Trump was in attendance at a Christmas party an took a picture with a number of African American attendees.

Targeting

Targeting is the threat actor’s intentional selection of a target audience, or the group or individual whom he is interested in impacting with his deepfake campaign.

The target audience, while broadly, United States citizens eligible to vote, in particularly this targeted the African American community to cultivate liking and vote swaying for Trump.

Research and Reconnaissance

Research & Reconnaissance occurs when the threat actor is effortfully gathering information about the target audience, the optimal channels to conduct their campaign on, the relevant narratives for the attack, and type of content that will have the desired impact on the target audience.

No case specific insights generated.

Preparation and Planning

Preparation & Planning are the steps and processes that the threat actor takes to acquire the tools and content needed to create the deepfake media for their campaign and their deliberation for the execution of the campaign.

No case specific insights generated.

Production

Production is the threat actor’s use of tools and content for the creation and development of deepfake media for their attack campaign.

No case specific insights generated.

Narrative Testing

Narrative Testing. A narrative is a story, or an account of related events or experiences. A good narrative will have story coherence, such that both the story being told and its relationship to the real world are cohesive and clear. In deepfake campaigns, threat actors consider and evaluate the possible narratives—particularly in relation to events and context—to support the campaign in an effort to maximize the believability and efficacy of the attack.

The synthetic media sought to perpetuate a message that former President Donald Trump went out of his way to engage with the African American community.

Deployment

Deployment is the threat actor’s intentional transmission of deepfake content to the target audience through selected online channels.

This synthetic media was deployed via the Facebook social media platform

Amplification

Amplification is the threat actor’s intentional efforts to maximize the visibility, virality and target audience exposure to their deepfake content.

The post and synthetic media garnered over a 1000 likes views and and hundred of reposts, causing moderate virality on Facebook.

Post-Campaign

Post-Campaign is the period after the target audience has received and been exposed to the deepfake content.

This image was the sole image sent and not part of larger set of images or videos.



Cognitive Security Recommendations

This section identifies the steps and measures to prevent and defend against the synthetic media/deepfake content assessed in this DTIR. For a more detailed recommendation, training or consultation, connect with Psyber Labs.


A main aspects of media such as this should be considered: The context of the user posting it. -Does the user seem to exhibit political biases or extremes? - Has this person posted unusual or fantastical content previously? In this case, Mark Kaye is a known far-right influencer on social media and hosts a right-wing podcast who has posted controversial content in the past.

Appendix

DTIR™ Version: 1.0

Submission Date (UTC): March 26, 2024 02:44

Assessment Date (UTC): April 02, 2024 02:24

SHA256 Hash: 3f7a42bd89348d6c1d212c621ffce35b935de37f9629056754b0f35471e62e78

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=902026471276979&set=a.276904387122527