High
Fake
The more synthetic media is perceived to be legitimate and authoritative, the content is more likely to be trusted, persuasive, and acted upon.
Synthetic media can range from non-interactive, not ongoing, or not consistent (low) to interactive, ongoing, and consistent (high).
Synthetic media can range from very recognizable and familiar (high) or hardly (or not) recognizable and familiar (low).
Synthetic media can range from evoking a significant affective response (high) to barely or not at all eliciting an affective reaction.
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).
The spread of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and affect through social aggregates from one member to another
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
Synthetic media used to generate a falsehood to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the target audience. Often, a hoax is used as a vector into other social contagion or deception campaigns
Information, especially of a biased, misleading or non-rational nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view
Slang for provocative, inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messaging with the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses, or manipulating others' perception.
The tendency to seek information that confirms or supports a predetermined position or conclusion.
A perceptual effect that hides or shows an element by animating its background color first.
In assessing other people, it is the tendency for a person’s undesirable trait to be generalized to possess other poor traits.
Information that is more readily available in memory is judged as more likely or more representative. Can be influenced by recency or emotional virulence of the memories.
Technique that attempts to implant a false memory in the target through suggestion.
A feeling of dissatisfaction with one’s situation or circumstances. May be leveraged by an attacker by offering a path toward resolving the source disgruntlement as a means of manipulating the target.
Affective responses--emotions, moods and feelings--effect cognition and perception. Media that intentionally causes a high degree of emotional load can significantly image how target audience member perceives and thinks about the subject of the media.
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
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
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
Technical complexity of the atttack.
How damaging the attack was intended to be.
Chaos injection is the intentional introduction of evocative material--which is often ambiguous and unresolved--to cause confusion and disorder.
Create group, organization or societal division
Create a real or imaginary threat to the target forcing him to adapt his/her plans.
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)
Instigating, eliciting or forcing the target audience to take and action that is advantageous to the deepfake threat adversary
Use of deepfake and synthetic media to promote a particular political, scientific, social or other cause
The creation and dissemination of the political video benefitting DeSantis raises a number of Deepfake Kill Chain factors of concern.
Motivation is the underlying activator, purpose or sustained reasons for why the deepfake threat actor wants to create nefarious synthetic media.
The creation of the synthetic images for use in the overall political video demonstrates onset motivation of creating concern and dislike of Trump--and divisiveness in the Republican Party.
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.
While the video was watched over 10 million times, the likely target audience is Republican voters who are seeking to learn more about presidential candidate options for the U.S. 2024 presidential election.
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 & 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 is the threat actor’s use of tools and content for the creation and development of deepfake media for their attack campaign.
Use of artificial intelligence to create salacious, emotion-inducing images for the intended viewers.
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 video as a whole, and in particular, the AI generated content, are meant to damage the credibility and reputation of former president Trump.
Deployment is the threat actor’s intentional transmission of deepfake content to the target audience through selected online channels.
No case specific insights generated.
Amplification is the threat actor’s intentional efforts to maximize the visibility, virality and target audience exposure to their deepfake content.
The video was strategically placed on social media, X, with the ability for viewers, sharing, commenting, bookmarking and otherwise continuing the dissemination and consumption of the content.
Post-Campaign is the period after the target audience has received and been exposed to the deepfake content.
No case specific insights generated.
-Viewers of the media should first consider the source of the content and ask the question" Why would the user post this video?" and "What was the intended effect on viewers like me?" -Checking extrinsic sources for validation and context is often helpful, particularly for political content. While there are media and news efforts to "fact check," Psyber Labs always recommends independent objective fact finding before making a conclusion.