Low
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).
There does not appear be a specific threat associated with this image; however, it was not specifically labeled as "AI generated" in the original post and therefore could have potentially been used as part of a disinformation campaign. Threat types listed below reflect the potential misuse of this image, rather than actual misuse.
The spread of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and affect through social aggregates from one member to another
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information wherein there is no intention to cause fictitious narratives or beliefs, but rather, it is a result of unintentionally getting the facts wrong.
Artwork creative using generative adversarial networks (GAN), other other neural networks or artificial intelligence.
False information purposely spread to influence public opinion or obscure the truth
This is a highly provocative visual image intended to create a visceral response. Such imagery has high potential to create false memories associated with this event.
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.
An attacker leverages fear to gain target compliance.
False memory implantation is a recollection that seems real but is actually a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event by virtue of being fed untrue information about an event or experience. These memories may be entirely false and imaginary, or in some cases may contain elements of fact that have been distorted by interfering information or other memory distortions.
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.
The likely motive for using imagery such as this in a legitimate news story is laziness or a desire to save money spent on real images. The potential motive for using such imagery in a disinformation campaign orient around the visually striking and evocative imagery.
Instigating, eliciting or forcing the target audience to take and action that is advantageous to the deepfake threat adversary
The media was created based upon an artistic project or endeavor
This image appears to have been generated for the purpose of using in a news story.
Motivation is the underlying activator, purpose or sustained reasons for why the deepfake threat actor wants to create nefarious synthetic media.
Providing freely available legitimate images may reduce the need for journalists to resort to generating images of actual events.
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.
No case specific insights generated.
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.
No case specific insights generated.
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.
No case specific insights generated.
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.
Labeling this image as "AI generated" dampened the distribution and amplification of its inclusion in additional news stories.
Post-Campaign is the period after the target audience has received and been exposed to the deepfake content.
No case specific insights generated.
No security recommendations since this does not appear to have been used maliciously.
Notes:
The image may have been used in legitimate news articles about the Maui wildfires. Although report eluded the potential inclusion in legitimate news reports, the analyst was unable to locate any articles incorporating this specific image.