A report has been issued outlining the threats that nation-state actors pose to the upcoming election in the UK.
The report from ZeroFox reveals concerns about potential threats from hostile states, AI-enabled deepfakes and mass-scale disinformation campaigns
Lewis Shields, Director of Dark Ops at ZeroFox, said: “Ahead of the UK election, organisations should be on guard for mass disinformation campaigns deployed across social media to spread false information. Although not likely to directly disrupt voting, these campaigns push geopolitical propaganda and disinformation that are likely to influence opinion.
“As part of this, threat actors are expected to leverage GenAI to create more effective and persuasive content, including highly realistic synthetically-generated images and deepfakes of politicians to discredit and undermine opposition candidates.
“Additionally, nation state actors have long been known to interfere in major global events, and while unlikely to conduct election interference, nefarious actors may seek to influence the outcome of the UK election.
“Illicitly-obtained personal information of UK citizens is unlikely to be leveraged to influence the results of the election, but access to sensitive communications between political figures and policy decisions could be of significant value to adversarial nation-state entities. As such, organisations must safeguard classified, sensitive, or business-critical assets using secure, off-site backup methods, compartmentalisation and authentication mechanisms.
“Only by increasing awareness and collaboration between government employees, cybersecurity experts, and the public whilst having robust security protocols in place, can we navigate this minefield and uphold the sanctity of our democratic electoral processes.”
