Collaboration Between Government and Social Media Platforms to Counteract Online Misinformation
Introduction
The rise of misinformation, disinformation, and synthetic media content on the internet and social media platforms has raised serious concerns, emphasizing the need for responsible use of social media to maintain information accuracy and combat misinformation incidents. With online misinformation rampant all over the world, the World Economic Forum's 2024 Global Risk Report, notably ranks India amongst the highest in terms of risk of mis/disinformation.
The widespread online misinformation on social media platforms necessitates a joint effort between tech/social media platforms and the government to counter such incidents. The Indian government is actively seeking to collaborate with tech/social media platforms to foster a safe and trustworthy digital environment and to also ensure compliance with intermediary rules and regulations. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has used ‘extraordinary powers’ to block certain YouTube channels, X (Twitter) & Facebook accounts, allegedly used to spread harmful misinformation. The government has issued advisories regulating deepfake and misinformation, and social media platforms initiated efforts to implement algorithmic and technical improvements to counter misinformation and secure the information landscape.
Efforts by the Government and Social Media Platforms to Combat Misinformation
- Advisory regulating AI, deepfake and misinformation
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a modified advisory on 15th March 2024, in suppression of the advisory issued on 1st March 2024. The latest advisory specifies that the platforms should inform all users about the consequences of dealing with unlawful information on platforms, including disabling access, removing non-compliant information, suspension or termination of access or usage rights of the user to their user account and imposing punishment under applicable law. The advisory necessitates identifying synthetically created content across various formats, and instructs platforms to employ labels, unique identifiers, or metadata to ensure transparency.
- Rules related to content regulation
The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (Updated as on 6.4.2023) have been enacted under the IT Act, 2000. These rules assign specific obligations on intermediaries as to what kind of information is to be hosted, displayed, uploaded, published, transmitted, stored or shared. The rules also specify provisions to establish a grievance redressal mechanism by platforms and remove unlawful content within stipulated time frames.
- Counteracting misinformation during Indian elections 2024
To counter misinformation during the Indian elections the government and social media platforms made their best efforts to ensure the electoral integrity was saved from any threat of mis/disinformation. The Election Commission of India (ECI) further launched the 'Myth vs Reality Register' to combat misinformation and to ensure the integrity of the electoral process during the general elections in 2024. The ECI collaborated with Google to empower the citizenry by making it easy to find critical voting information on Google Search and YouTube. In this way, Google has supported the 2024 Indian General Election by providing high-quality information to voters and helping people navigate AI-generated content. Google connected voters to helpful information through product features that show data from trusted institutions across its portfolio. YouTube showcased election information panels, featuring content from authoritative sources.
- YouTube and X (Twitter) new ‘Notes Feature’
- Notes Feature on YouTube: YouTube is testing an experimental feature that allows users to add notes to provide relevant, timely, and easy-to-understand context for videos. This initiative builds on previous products that display helpful information alongside videos, such as information panels and disclosure requirements when content is altered or synthetic. YouTube clarified that the pilot will be available on mobiles in the U.S. and in the English language, to start with. During this test phase, viewers, participants, and creators are invited to give feedback on the quality of the notes.
- Community Notes feature on X: Community Notes on X aims to enhance the understanding of potentially misleading posts by allowing users to add context to them. Contributors can leave notes on any post, and if enough people rate the note as helpful, it will be publicly displayed. The algorithm is open source and publicly available on GitHub, allowing anyone to audit, analyze, or suggest improvements. However, Community Notes do not represent X's viewpoint and cannot be edited or modified by their teams. A post with a Community Note will not be labelled, removed, or addressed by X unless it violates the X Rules, Terms of Service, or Privacy Policy. Failure to abide by these rules can result in removal from accessing Community Notes and/or other remediations. Users can report notes that do not comply with the rules by selecting the menu on a note and selecting ‘Report’ or using the provided form.
CyberPeace Policy Recommendations
Countering widespread online misinformation on social media platforms requires a multipronged approach that involves joint efforts from different stakeholders. Platforms should invest in state-of-the-art algorithms and technology to detect and flag suspected misleading information. They should also establish trustworthy fact-checking protocols and collaborate with expert fact-checking groups. Campaigns, seminars, and other educational materials must be encouraged by the government to increase public awareness and digital literacy about the mis/disinformation risks and impacts. Netizens should be empowered with the necessary skills and ability to discern fact and misleading information to successfully browse true information in the digital information age. The joint efforts by Government authorities, tech companies, and expert cyber security organisations are vital in promoting a secure and honest online information landscape and countering the spread of mis/disinformation. Platforms must encourage netizens/users to foster appropriate online conduct while using platforms and abiding by the terms & conditions and community guidelines of the platforms. Encouraging a culture of truth and integrity on the internet, honouring differing points of view, and confirming facts all help to create a more reliable and information-resilient environment.
References:
- https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Advisory%2015March%202024.pdf
- https://blog.google/intl/en-in/company-news/outreach-initiatives/supporting-the-2024-indian-general-election/
- https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/new-ways-to-offer-viewers-more-context/
- https://help.x.com/en/using-x/community-notes
Related Blogs
Overview:
The rapid digitization of educational institutions in India has created both opportunities and challenges. While technology has improved access to education and administrative efficiency, it has also exposed institutions to significant cyber threats. This report, published by CyberPeace, examines the types, causes, impacts, and preventive measures related to cyber risks in Indian educational institutions. It highlights global best practices, national strategies, and actionable recommendations to mitigate these threats.
Significance of the Study:
The pandemic-induced shift to online learning, combined with limited cybersecurity budgets, has made educational institutions prime targets for cyberattacks. These threats compromise sensitive student, faculty, and institutional data, leading to operational disruptions, financial losses, and reputational damage. Globally, educational institutions face similar challenges, emphasizing the need for universal and localized responses.
Threat Faced by Education Institutions:
Based on the insights from the CyberPeace’s report titled 'Exploring Cyber Threats and Digital Risks in Indian Educational Institutions', this concise blog provides a comprehensive overview of cybersecurity threats and risks faced by educational institutions, along with essential details to address these challenges.
🎣 Phishing: Phishing is a social engineering tactic where cyber criminals impersonate trusted sources to steal sensitive information, such as login credentials and financial details. It often involves deceptive emails or messages that lead to counterfeit websites, pressuring victims to provide information quickly. Variants include spear phishing, smishing, and vishing.
💰 Ransomware: Ransomware is malware that locks users out of their systems or data until a ransom is paid. It spreads through phishing emails, malvertising, and exploiting vulnerabilities, causing downtime, data leaks, and theft. Ransom demands can range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
🌐 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): DDoS attacks overwhelm servers, denying users access to websites and disrupting daily operations, which can hinder students and teachers from accessing learning resources or submitting assignments. These attacks are relatively easy to execute, especially against poorly protected networks, and can be carried out by amateur cybercriminals, including students or staff, seeking to cause disruptions for various reasons
🕵️ Cyber Espionage: Higher education institutions, particularly research-focused universities, are vulnerable to spyware, insider threats, and cyber espionage. Spyware is unauthorized software that collects sensitive information or damages devices. Insider threats arise from negligent or malicious individuals, such as staff or vendors, who misuse their access to steal intellectual property or cause data leaks..
🔒 Data Theft: Data theft is a major threat to educational institutions, which store valuable personal and research information. Cybercriminals may sell this data or use it for extortion, while stealing university research can provide unfair competitive advantages. These attacks can go undetected for long periods, as seen in the University of California, Berkeley breach, where hackers allegedly stole 160,000 medical records over several months.
🛠️ SQL Injection: SQL injection (SQLI) is an attack that uses malicious code to manipulate backend databases, granting unauthorized access to sensitive information like customer details. Successful SQLI attacks can result in data deletion, unauthorized viewing of user lists, or administrative access to the database.
🔍Eavesdropping attack: An eavesdropping breach, or sniffing, is a network attack where cybercriminals steal information from unsecured transmissions between devices. These attacks are hard to detect since they don't cause abnormal data activity. Attackers often use network monitors, like sniffers, to intercept data during transmission.
🤖 AI-Powered Attacks: AI enhances cyber attacks like identity theft, password cracking, and denial-of-service attacks, making them more powerful, efficient, and automated. It can be used to inflict harm, steal information, cause emotional distress, disrupt organizations, and even threaten national security by shutting down services or cutting power to entire regions
Insights from Project eKawach
The CyberPeace Research Wing, in collaboration with SAKEC CyberPeace Center of Excellence (CCoE) and Autobot Infosec Private Limited, conducted a study simulating educational institutions' networks to gather intelligence on cyber threats. As part of the e-Kawach project, a nationwide initiative to strengthen cybersecurity, threat intelligence sensors were deployed to monitor internet traffic and analyze real-time cyber attacks from July 2023 to April 2024, revealing critical insights into the evolving cyber threat landscape.
Cyber Attack Trends
Between July 2023 and April 2024, the e-Kawach network recorded 217,886 cyberattacks from IP addresses worldwide, with a significant portion originating from countries including the United States, China, Germany, South Korea, Brazil, Netherlands, Russia, France, Vietnam, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. However, attributing these attacks to specific nations or actors is complex, as threat actors often use techniques like exploiting resources from other countries, or employing VPNs and proxies to obscure their true locations, making it difficult to pinpoint the real origin of the attacks.
Brute Force Attack:
The analysis uncovered an extensive use of automated tools in brute force attacks, with 8,337 unique usernames and 54,784 unique passwords identified. Among these, the most frequently targeted username was “root,” which accounted for over 200,000 attempts. Other commonly targeted usernames included: "admin", "test", "user", "oracle", "ubuntu", "guest", "ftpuser", "pi", "support"
Similarly, the study identified several weak passwords commonly targeted by attackers. “123456” was attempted over 3,500 times, followed by “password” with over 2,500 attempts. Other frequently targeted passwords included: "1234", "12345", "12345678", "admin", "123", "root", "test", "raspberry", "admin123", "123456789"
Insights from Threat Landscape Analysis
Research done by the USI - CyberPeace Centre of Excellence (CCoE) and Resecurity has uncovered several breached databases belonging to public, private, and government universities in India, highlighting significant cybersecurity threats in the education sector. The research aims to identify and mitigate cybersecurity risks without harming individuals or assigning blame, based on data available at the time, which may evolve with new information. Institutions were assigned risk ratings that descend from A to F, with most falling under a D rating, indicating numerous security vulnerabilities. Institutions rated D or F are 5.4 times more likely to experience data breaches compared to those rated A or B. Immediate action is recommended to address the identified risks.
Risk Findings :
The risk findings for the institutions are summarized through a pie chart, highlighting factors such as data breaches, dark web activity, botnet activity, and phishing/domain squatting. Data breaches and botnet activity are significantly higher compared to dark web leakages and phishing/domain squatting. The findings show 393,518 instances of data breaches, 339,442 instances of botnet activity, 7,926 instances related to the dark web and phishing & domain activity - 6711.
Key Indicators: Multiple instances of data breaches containing credentials (email/passwords) in plain text.
- Botnet activity indicating network hosts compromised by malware.
- Credentials from third-party government and non-governmental websites linked to official institutional emails
- Details of software applications, drivers installed on compromised hosts.
- Sensitive cookie data exfiltrated from various browsers.
- IP addresses of compromised systems.
- Login credentials for different Android applications.
Below is the sample detail of one of the top educational institutions that provides the insights about the higher rate of data breaches, botnet activity, dark web activities and phishing & domain squatting.
Risk Detection:
It indicates the number of data breaches, network hygiene, dark web activities, botnet activities, cloud security, phishing & domain squatting, media monitoring and miscellaneous risks. In the below example, we are able to see the highest number of data breaches and botnet activities in the sample particular domain.
Risk Changes:
Risk by Categories:
Risk is categorized with factors such as high, medium and low, the risk is at high level for data breaches and botnet activities.
Challenges Faced by Educational Institutions
Educational institutions face cyberattack risks, the challenges leading to cyberattack incidents in educational institutions are as follows:
🔒 Lack of a Security Framework: A key challenge in cybersecurity for educational institutions is the lack of a dedicated framework for higher education. Existing frameworks like ISO 27001, NIST, COBIT, and ITIL are designed for commercial organizations and are often difficult and costly to implement. Consequently, many educational institutions in India do not have a clearly defined cybersecurity framework.
🔑 Diverse User Accounts: Educational institutions manage numerous accounts for staff, students, alumni, and third-party contractors, with high user turnover. The continuous influx of new users makes maintaining account security a challenge, requiring effective systems and comprehensive security training for all users.
📚 Limited Awareness: Cybersecurity awareness among students, parents, teachers, and staff in educational institutions is limited due to the recent and rapid integration of technology. The surge in tech use, accelerated by the pandemic, has outpaced stakeholders' ability to address cybersecurity issues, leaving them unprepared to manage or train others on these challenges.
📱 Increased Use of Personal/Shared Devices: The growing reliance on unvetted personal/Shared devices for academic and administrative activities amplifies security risks.
💬 Lack of Incident Reporting: Educational institutions often neglect reporting cyber incidents, increasing vulnerability to future attacks. It is essential to report all cases, from minor to severe, to strengthen cybersecurity and institutional resilience.
Impact of Cybersecurity Attacks on Educational Institutions
Cybersecurity attacks on educational institutions lead to learning disruptions, financial losses, and data breaches. They also harm the institution's reputation and pose security risks to students. The following are the impacts of cybersecurity attacks on educational institutions:
📚Impact on the Learning Process: A report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that cyberattacks on school districts resulted in learning losses ranging from three days to three weeks, with recovery times taking between two to nine months.
💸Financial Loss: US schools reported financial losses ranging from $50,000 to $1 million due to expenses like hardware replacement and cybersecurity upgrades, with recovery taking an average of 2 to 9 months.
🔒Data Security Breaches: Cyberattacks exposed sensitive data, including grades, social security numbers, and bullying reports. Accidental breaches were often caused by staff, accounting for 21 out of 25 cases, while intentional breaches by students, comprising 27 out of 52 cases, frequently involved tampering with grades.
⚠️Data Security Breach: Cyberattacks on schools result in breaches of personal information, including grades and social security numbers, causing emotional, physical, and financial harm. These breaches can be intentional or accidental, with a US study showing staff responsible for most accidental breaches (21 out of 25) and students primarily behind intentional breaches (27 out of 52) to change grades.
🏫Impact on Institutional Reputation: Cyberattacks damaged the reputation of educational institutions, eroding trust among students, staff, and families. Negative media coverage and scrutiny impacted staff retention, student admissions, and overall credibility.
🛡️ Impact on Student Safety: Cyberattacks compromised student safety and privacy. For example, breaches like live-streaming school CCTV footage caused severe distress, negatively impacting students' sense of security and mental well-being.
CyberPeace Advisory:
CyberPeace emphasizes the importance of vigilance and proactive measures to address cybersecurity risks:
- Develop effective incident response plans: Establish a clear and structured plan to quickly identify, respond to, and recover from cyber threats. Ensure that staff are well-trained and know their roles during an attack to minimize disruption and prevent further damage.
- Implement access controls with role-based permissions: Restrict access to sensitive information based on individual roles within the institution. This ensures that only authorized personnel can access certain data, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches.
- Regularly update software and conduct cybersecurity training: Keep all software and systems up-to-date with the latest security patches to close vulnerabilities. Provide ongoing cybersecurity awareness training for students and staff to equip them with the knowledge to prevent attacks, such as phishing.
- Ensure regular and secure backups of critical data: Perform regular backups of essential data and store them securely in case of cyber incidents like ransomware. This ensures that, if data is compromised, it can be restored quickly, minimizing downtime.
- Adopt multi-factor authentication (MFA): Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication(MFA) for accessing sensitive systems or information to strengthen security. MFA adds an extra layer of protection by requiring users to verify their identity through more than one method, such as a password and a one-time code.
- Deploy anti-malware tools: Use advanced anti-malware software to detect, block, and remove malicious programs. This helps protect institutional systems from viruses, ransomware, and other forms of malware that can compromise data security.
- Monitor networks using intrusion detection systems (IDS): Implement IDS to monitor network traffic and detect suspicious activity. By identifying threats in real time, institutions can respond quickly to prevent breaches and minimize potential damage.
- Conduct penetration testing: Regularly conduct penetration testing to simulate cyberattacks and assess the security of institutional networks. This proactive approach helps identify vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by actual attackers.
- Collaborate with cybersecurity firms: Partner with cybersecurity experts to benefit from specialized knowledge and advanced security solutions. Collaboration provides access to the latest technologies, threat intelligence, and best practices to enhance the institution's overall cybersecurity posture.
- Share best practices across institutions: Create forums for collaboration among educational institutions to exchange knowledge and strategies for cybersecurity. Sharing successful practices helps build a collective defense against common threats and improves security across the education sector.
Conclusion:
The increasing cyber threats to Indian educational institutions demand immediate attention and action. With vulnerabilities like data breaches, botnet activities, and outdated infrastructure, institutions must prioritize effective cybersecurity measures. By adopting proactive strategies such as regular software updates, multi-factor authentication, and incident response plans, educational institutions can mitigate risks and safeguard sensitive data. Collaborative efforts, awareness, and investment in cybersecurity will be essential to creating a secure digital environment for academia.
Introduction
In today’s digital age, everyone is online, so is the healthcare sector worldwide. The latest victim of a data breach is Hong Kong healthcare provider OT&P Healthcare, which has recently suffered a data loss of 100,000 patients that exposed their medical history, and caused concern to the patients and their families. This breach has highlighted the vulnerability in the healthcare sector /industry and the importance of cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive information. This blog will explore the data breach, its impact on patients and families, and the best practices for safeguarding sensitive data.
Background: On 13 March 2023, an incident took place where the Cybercriminals deployed a variety of methods to breach the data, which included phishing attacks, malware, and exploiting software vulnerabilities. OT&P Health Care exploits the sensitive data of the patients. According to OT&P Healthcare, it is working together with law enforcement and has hired a cybersecurity firm to investigate the incident and tighten its security procedures. Like other data breaches, the inquiry will most certainly take some time to uncover the actual source and scope of the intrusion. Regardless of the cause of the breach, this event emphasises the significance of frequent cybersecurity assessments, vulnerability testing, and proactive data protection measures. Considering the dangers in the healthcare sector must be cautious in preserving the personal and medical records of the patients as they are sensitive in nature.
Is confidentiality at stake due to data breaches?
Medical data breaches represent a huge danger to patients, with serious ramifications for their privacy, financial security, and physical health. Some of the potential hazards and effects of medical data breaches are as follows:
- Compromise of patient data: Medical data breaches can expose patients’ sensitive information, such as their medical history, diagnoses, treatment, and medication regimens. If history is highly personal and reaches the wrong hands, it could harm someone’s reputation.
- Identity theft: the data stolen by the cybercriminals may be used by them to open credit accounts and apply for loans, Patients can suffer severe financial and psychological stress because of identity theft since they may spend years attempting to rebuild their credit and regain their good name.
- Medical Fraud: Medical data breaches can also result in medical fraud, which occurs when hackers use stolen medical information to charge insurance companies for services that were not performed or for bogus treatments or procedures. Medical fraud may result in financial losses for patients, insurance companies, and individuals obtaining ineffective or risky medical care.
Impact on patients
Data breach does not cause financial loss but may also profoundly impact their mental health and emotional well-being. let’s understand some psychological impacts:
- Anxiety and Stress: Patients whose medical data has been affected may experience feelings of stress and anxiety as they worry about the potential consequences of the data loss can be misused.
- Loss of faith: Patients may lose faith in their healthcare providers if they believe their personal and medical information needs to be properly As a result, patients may be reluctant to disclose sensitive information to their healthcare professionals, compromising the quality of their medical care.
- Sense of Embarrassment: Patients may feel disregarded or ashamed if their sensitive medical information is revealed, particularly if it relates to a sensitive or stigmatised This might lead to social isolation and a reluctance to seek further medical treatment.
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Patients who have experienced a data breach may have PTSD symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, and avoidance behaviour. This can have long-term consequences for their mental health and quality of life.
Legal Implications of Data Breach
Patients have certain legal rights and compensations when a healthcare data breach occurs. Let’s have a look at them: –
- Legal Liability: Healthcare providers have a legal obligation to protect data under various privacy and security laws if they fail to take appropriate measures to protect patient data, they may be held legally liable for resulting harm.
- Legal recourse: Patients whose healthcare data leak has impacted them have the legal right to seek compensation and hold healthcare providers and organisations This could involve suing the healthcare practitioner or organisationresponsible for the breach.
- Right to seek compensation: the patients who have suffered from the data loss are liable to seek compensation.
- Notifications: As soon as a data breach takes place, it impacts the organisation and its customers. In this case, it is the responsibility of the OT&P to
- notify their patients about the data breach and inform them about the consequences.
- Take Away from OT &P Healthcare Data Breach: with the growing data breaches in the healthcare industry, here are some lessons that can be learned from the Hong Kong data breach.
- Cybersecurity: The OT&P Healthcare data breach points to the vital need to prioritisecybersecurity in healthcare. To secure themselves, hospitals and the healthcare sector must use the latest software to protect their data.
- Regular risk assessments: These assessments help find system vulnerabilities and security issues. This can assist healthcare providers and organisationsin taking the necessary actions to avoid data breaches and boost their cybersecurity defences.
- Staff Training: Healthcare workers should be taught cybersecurity best practices, such as detecting and responding to phishing attempts, handling sensitive data, and reporting suspected security breaches. This training should be continued to keep workers updated on the newest cybersecurity trends and threats.
- Incident Response Strategy: Healthcare providers and organisations should have an incident response policy in place to deal with data breaches and other security concerns. This strategy should include protocols for reporting instances, limiting the breach, and alerting patients and verified authorities.
Conclusion
The recent data breach in Hong Kong healthcare impact not only the patients but also their trust is shaken. As we continue to rely on digital technology for medical records and healthcare delivery, it is essential that healthcare providers and organisations take proactive steps to protect patient data from cyber-attacks and data breaches.
References
Executive Summary:
A viral clip where the Indian batsman Virat Kohli is shown endorsing an online casino and declaring a Rs 50,000 jackpot in three days as a guarantee has been proved a fake. In the clip that is accompanied by manipulated captions, Kohli is said to have admitted to being involved in the launch of an online casino during the interview with Graham Bensinger but this is not true. Nevertheless, an investigation showed that the original interview, which was published on YouTube in the last quarter of 2023 by Bensinger, did not have the mentioned words spoken by Kohli. Besides, another AI deepfake analysis tool called Deepware labelled the viral video as a deepfake.
Claims:
The viral video states that cricket star Virat Kohli gets involved in the promotion of an online casino and ensures that the users of the site can make a profit of Rs 50,000 within three days. Conversely, the CyberPeace Research Team has just revealed that the video is a deepfake and not the original and there is no credible evidence suggesting Kohli's participation in such endorsements. A lot of the users are sharing the videos with the wrong info title over different Social Media platforms.
Fact Check:
As soon as we were informed about the news, we made use of Keyword Search to see any news report that could be considered credible about Virat Kohli promoting any Casino app and we found nothing. Therefore, we also used Reverse Image Search for Virat Kohli wearing a Black T-shirt as seen in the video to find out more about the subject. We landed on a YouTube Video by Graham Bensinger, an American Journalist. The clip of the viral video was taken from this original video.
In this video, he discussed his childhood, his diet, his cricket training, his marriage, etc. but did not mention anything regarding a newly launched Casino app by the cricketer.
Through close scrutiny of the viral video we have noticed some inconsistencies in the lip-sync and voice. Subsequently, we executed Deepfake Detection in Deepware tool and identified it to be Deepfake Detected.
Finally, we affirm that the Viral Video Is Deepfakes Video and the statement made is False.
Conclusion:
The video has gone viral and claims that cricketer Virat Kohli is the one endorsing an online casino and assuring you that in three days time you will be a guaranteed winner of Rs 50,000. This is all a fake story. This incident demonstrates the necessity of checking facts and a source before believing any information, as well as remaining sceptical about deepfakes and AI (artificial intelligence), which is a new technology used nowadays for spreading misinformation.
