| [I00096 China ramps up use of AI misinformation](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00096.md) | The Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre (MTAC) published a report documenting the use of AI by pro-Chinese threat actors:<br><br><i>On 13 January, Spamouflage [(a Pro-Chinese Communist Party actor)] posted audio clips to YouTube of independent candidate [for Taiwan’s Jan 2024 presidential election] Terry Gou – who also founded electronics giant Foxconn – in which Gou endorsed another candidate in the race. This clip was almost certainly AI-generated, and it was swiftly removed by YouTube. A fake letter purporting to be from Gou, endorsing the same candidate, had already circulated – Gou had of course made no such endorsement.</i><br><br>Here Spamoflage used an account on YouTube to post AI Generated audio impersonating an electoral candidate (T0146: Account, T0152.006: Video Platform, T0115: Post Content, T0088.001: Develop AI-Generated Audio (Deepfakes), T0143.003: Impersonated Persona, T0097.110: Party Official Persona).<br><br><i>Spamouflage also exploited AI-powered video platform CapCut – which is owned by TikTok backers ByteDance – to generate fake news anchors which were used in a variety of campaigns targeting the various presidential candidates in Taiwan.</i><br><br>Spamoflage created accounts on CapCut, which it used to create AI-generated videos of fabricated news anchors (T0146: Account, T0154.002: AI Media Platform, T0087.001: Develop AI-Generated Video (Deepfakes), T0143.002: Fabricated Persona, T0097.102: Journalist Persona). |
| [I00104 Macron Campaign Hit With “Massive and Coordinated” Hacking Attack](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00104.md) | <i>A massive trove of documents purporting to contain thousands of emails and other files from the [2017 presidential] campaign of Emmanuel Macron—the French centrist candidate squaring off against right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen—was posted on the internet Friday afternoon. The Macron campaign says that at least some of the documents are fake. The document dump came just over a day before voting is set to begin in the final round of the election and mere hours before candidates are legally required to stop campaigning.<br><br>At about 2:35 p.m. ET, a post appeared on the 4chan online message board announcing the leak. The documents appear to include emails, internal memos, and screenshots of purported banking records.<br><br>“In this pastebin are links to torrents of emails between Macron, his team and other officials, politicians as well as original documents and photos,” the anonymous 4chan poster wrote. “This was passed on to me today so now I am giving it to you, the people. The leak is massvie and released in the hopes that the human search engine here will be able to start sifting through the contents and figure out exactly what we have here.”<br><br>The Macron campaign issued a statement Friday night saying it was the victim of a “massive and coordinated” hacking attack. That campaign said the leak included some fake documents that were intended “to sow doubt and misinformation.”</i><br><br>Actors posted a to 4chan a link (T0151.012: Image Board Platform, T0146.006: Open Access Platform, T0115: Post Content, T0122: Direct Users to Alternative Platforms) to text content hosted on pastebin (T0152.005: Paste Platform, T0146.006: Open Access Platform, T0115: Post Content), which contained links to download stolen and fabricated documents. |
| [I00118 ‘War Thunder’ players are once again leaking sensitive military technology information on a video game forum](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00118.md) | <i>In an effort to prove that the developers behind a popular multiplayer vehicle combat game had made a mistake, a player went ahead and published classified British military documents about one of the real-life tanks featured in the game.<br><br>This truly bizarre turn of events recently occurred in the public forum for War Thunder, a free-to-player multiplayer combat sim featuring modern land, air, and sea craft. Getting a small detail wrong on a piece of equipment might not be a big deal for the average gamer, but for the War Thunder crowd it sure as hell is. With 25,000 devoted players, the game very much bills itself as the military vehicle combat simulator.<br><br>A player, who identified himself as a British tank commander, claimed that the game’s developers at Gaijin Entertainment had inaccurately represented the Challenger 2 main battle tank used by the British military.<br><br>The self-described tank commander’s bio listed his location as Tidworth Camp in Wiltshire, England, according to the UK Defense Journal, which reported that the base is home to the Royal Tank Regiment, which fields Challenger 2 tanks.<br><br>The player, who went by the handle Pyrophoric, reportedly shared an image on the War Thunder forum of the tank’s specs that were pulled from the Challenger 2’s Army Equipment Support Publication, which is essentially a technical manual. <br><br>[...]<br><br>A moderator for the forum, who’s handle is “Templar_”, explained that the developer had removed the material after they received confirmation from the Ministry of Defense that the document is still in fact classified.</i><br><br>A user of War Thunder’s forums posted confidential documents to win an argument (T0089.001: Obtain Authentic Documents, T0146: Account, T0097.105: Military Personnel Persona, T0115: Post Content, T0143.001: Authentic Persona, T0151.009: Legacy Online Forum Platform). |
