# Technique T0145.007: Stock Image Account Imagery
* **Summary**: Stock images used in account imagery.
Stock image websites produce photos of people in various situations. Threat Actors can purchase or appropriate these images for use in their account imagery, increasing perceived legitimacy while avoiding the risk of detection associated with stealing or AI-generating profile pictures (see T0145.001: Copy Account Imagery and T0145.002: AI-Generated Account Imagery).
Stock images tend to include physically attractive people, and this can benefit threat actors by increasing attention given to their posts.
This Technique is often used by Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour accounts (CIBs). A collection of accounts displaying the same behaviour using similar account imagery can indicate the presence of CIB.
* **Belongs to tactic stage**: TA15
| Incident | Descriptions given for this incident |
| -------- | -------------------- |
| [I00086 #WeAreNotSafe – Exposing How a Post-October 7th Disinformation Network Operates on Israeli Social Media](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00086.md) | “In the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7th, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Information Security Department revealed a campaign of Instagram accounts impersonating young, attractive Israeli women who were actively engaging Israeli soldiers, attempting to extract information through direct messages.
[...]
“Some profiles underwent a reverse-image search of their photos to ascertain their authenticity. Many of the images searched were found to be appropriated from genuine social media profiles or sites such as Pinterest. When this was the case, the account was marked as confirmed to be inauthentic. One innovative method involves using photos that are initially frames from videos, which allows for evading reverse searches in most cases . This is seen in Figure 4, where an image uploaded by an inauthentic account was a screenshot taken from a TikTok video.”
In this example accounts associated with an influence operation used account imagery showing “young, attractive Israeli women” (T0145.007: Attractive Person Account Imagery), with some of these assets taken from existing accounts not associated with the operation (T0145.001: Copy Account Imagery). |
| [I00087 Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00087.md) | “In 2017, Tanya O'Carroll, a technology and human rights adviser for Amnesty International, published an investigation of the political impact of bots and trolls in Mexico (O’Carroll, 2017). An article by the BBC describes a video showing the operation of a "troll farm" in Mexico, where people were tweeting in support of Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI in 2012 (Martinez, 2018).
“According to a report published by El País, the main target of parties’ online strategies are young people, including 14 million new voters who are expected to play a decisive role in the outcome of the July 2018 election (Peinado et al., 2018). Thus, one of the strategies employed by these bots was the use of profile photos of attractive people from other countries (Soloff, 2017).”
In this example accounts copied the profile pictures of attractive people from other countries (T0145.001: Copy Account Imagery, T0145.007: Attractive Person Account Imagery). |
| [I00089 Hackers Use Fake Facebook Profiles of Attractive Women to Spread Viruses, Steal Passwords](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00089.md) | “On Facebook, Rita, Alona and Christina appeared to be just like the millions of other U.S citizens sharing their lives with the world. They discussed family outings, shared emojis and commented on each other's photographs.
“In reality, the three accounts were part of a highly-targeted cybercrime operation, used to spread malware that was able to steal passwords and spy on victims.
“Hackers with links to Lebanon likely ran the covert scheme using a strain of malware dubbed "Tempting Cedar Spyware," according to researchers from Prague-based anti-virus company Avast, which detailed its findings in a report released on Wednesday.
“In a honey trap tactic as old as time, the culprits' targets were mostly male, and lured by fake attractive women.
“In the attack, hackers would send flirtatious messages using Facebook to the chosen victims, encouraging them to download a second , booby-trapped, chat application known as Kik Messenger to have "more secure" conversations. Upon analysis, Avast experts found that "many fell for the trap.””
In this example threat actors took on the persona of a romantic suitor on Facebook, directing their targets to another platform (T0097:109 Romantic Suitor Persona, T0145.007: Attractive Person Account Imagery, T0143.002: Fabricated Persona). |
| Counters | Response types |
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