Iranian government-aligned actors have interrupted TV streaming services in early December to broadcast a fake news video featuring an apparently AI-generated anchor delivering a report on the war in Gaza, according to analysts at Microsoft.
The disruption reached audiences in the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Canada, Microsoft said in a blogpost this week, adding that the hacking was part of “a series of cyberattacks and influence operations intended to help the Hamas cause and weaken Israel and its political allies and business partners.”
“This marked the first Iranian influence operation Microsoft has detected where AI played a key component in its messaging and is one example of the fast and significant expansion in the scope of Iranian operations since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.”
In a report which accompanied the blogpost, Microsoft said that the fake news broadcast, branded “For Humanity,” featured unverified images that claimed to show Palestinians injured and killed from Israeli military operations in Gaza.
“News outlets and viewers in the UAE, Canada, and the UK reported disruptions in streaming television programming, including BBC, that matched For Humanity’s claims,” the Microsoft analysts said.
The analysts said that Cotton Sandstorm, a hacking group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), published videos on the Telegram messaging platform showing it hacking into three online streaming services and disrupting news channels with the fake news broadcast.
“News outlets and viewers in the UAE, Canada, and the UK reported disruptions in streaming television programming, including BBC, that matched For Humanity’s claims,” they said.
Breakthroughs in generative AI, technology that can swiftly produce convincing text, voice and image from simple hand-typed prompts, have triggered a rise in fake videos of people online.
Microsoft said that the cyber tactics used by Iranian state-backed actors to undermine international political, military or economic support for Israeli military operations also included leaking personal data from an Israeli university and attacking targets in Albania, Bahrain and the United States – countries that the Islamic Republic perceives are aiding Israel.
In 2020, Iranian hackers targeted the US election with a cyber-campaign that included sending intimidating emails to voters purporting to be from members of a far-right group, setting up a website inciting violence against the then-FBI director and others, and spreading disinformation about voting infrastructure.
“As we look forward to the 2024 US presidential election, Iranian activities could build on what happened in 2020 when they impersonated American extremists and incited violence against US government officials,” Microsoft warned.
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