Technique T0145.003: Animal Account Imagery

Summary: Animal used in account imagery.

An influence operation might flesh out its account by uploading a profile picture, increasing its perceived authenticity.

People sometimes legitimately use images of animals as their profile pictures (e.g. of their pets), and threat actors can mimic this behaviour to avoid 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).

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
I00088 Much Ado About ‘Somethings’ - China-Linked Influence Operation Endures Despite Takedown	“Beneath a video on Facebook about the war between Israel and Hamas, Lamonica Trout commented, “America is the war monger, the Jew’s own son!” She left identical comments beneath the same video on two other Facebook pages. Trout’s profile provides no information besides her name. It lists no friends, and there is not a single post or photograph in her feed. Trout’s profile photo shows an alligator. “Lamonica Trout is likely an invention of the group behind Spamouflage, an ongoing, multi-year influence operation that promotes Beijing’s interests. Last year, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, took down 7,704 accounts and 954 pages it identified as part of the Spamouflage operation, which it described as the “largest known cross-platform influence operation [Meta had] disrupted to date.”2 Facebook’s terms of service prohibit a range of deceptive and inauthentic behaviors, including efforts to conceal the purpose of social media activity or the identity of those behind it.” In this example an account attributed to a multi-year influence operation created the persona of Lamonica Trout in a Facebook account, which used an image of an animal in its profile picture (T0145.003: Animal Account Imagery).

Incident

Descriptions given for this incident

I00088 Much Ado About ‘Somethings’ - China-Linked Influence Operation Endures Despite Takedown

“Beneath a video on Facebook about the war between Israel and Hamas, Lamonica Trout commented, “America is the war monger, the Jew’s own son!” She left identical comments beneath the same video on two other Facebook pages. Trout’s profile provides no information besides her name. It lists no friends, and there is not a single post or photograph in her feed. Trout’s profile photo shows an alligator.

“Lamonica Trout is likely an invention of the group behind Spamouflage, an ongoing, multi-year influence operation that promotes Beijing’s interests. Last year, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, took down 7,704 accounts and 954 pages it identified as part of the Spamouflage operation, which it described as the “largest known cross-platform influence operation [Meta had] disrupted to date.”2 Facebook’s terms of service prohibit a range of deceptive and inauthentic behaviors, including efforts to conceal the purpose of social media activity or the identity of those behind it.”

In this example an account attributed to a multi-year influence operation created the persona of Lamonica Trout in a Facebook account, which used an image of an animal in its profile picture (T0145.003: Animal Account Imagery).

Counters	Response types

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2.4 KiB Raw Blame History Unescape Escape

Technique T0145.003: Animal Account Imagery

2.4 KiB

Raw Blame History