State actors, private influence operators and grassroots groups are exploiting the openness and reach of the Internet to manipulate populations at a distance. This is an extension of a decades-long struggle for “hearts and minds” via propaganda, influence operations and information warfare. Computational propaganda fueled by AI has the prospect of making matters much worse.

The Credibility Coalition’s MisinfoSec Working Group (MisinfosecWG) is creating standards for sharing information about misinformation incidents and how to respond to them. The work of the group is inspired largely by existing standards in information security.

The structure and propagation patterns of misinformation attacks have many similarities to those seen in information security and computer hacking. By analyzing similarities with information security frameworks, MisinfosecWG gives defenders better ways to describe, identify and counter misinformation-based attacks. Specifically, we place misinformation components into a framework commonly used to describe information security incidents. Our work will give responders the ability to transfer other information security principles to the misinformation sphere, and to plan defenses and countermoves.