Leaders Online: After a test in Taiwan's presidential election, China may now use artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content to manipulate India's Lok Sabha elections, a Microsoft report has warned. A Chinese government cyber group may be trying to target elections in the US and South Korea with the support of North Korea, according to an analysis by Microsoft Threat Intelligence. (Lok Sabha election 2024)
“China will create and abuse AI-generated content for its interests. Such content is unlikely to affect election results. But China's experiment with increasing memes, videos and audio content will continue and may prove more effective.” The report also said.
The Lok Sabha elections in the country will be held in seven phases. This election will start from April 19 and will continue till June 1. Lok Sabha election results will be announced on June 4.
Chinese cyber group Flax Typhoon frequently attacks the telecommunications sector. It targeted India, the Philippines, Hong Kong and the US in early 2023 and in the winter. In February, a Chinese hacker group claimed to have targeted key Indian government offices, including the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) and Ministry of Home Affairs, and businesses such as Reliance and Air India.
An investigation by The Washington Post revealed that hackers had infiltrated 95.2 gigabytes of Indian government immigration data. Meanwhile, the leaked files were posted on GitHub.
Storm-1376 Group
The Microsoft report also said that Storm-1376, another group linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has posted videos of AI-generated anchors in Mandarin (Chinese) and English accusing the US and India of being responsible for the unrest in Myanmar.
Myanmar has been facing civil war conflict since February 2021 military coup. Due to this coup there were huge demonstrations in 2021. which was brutally suppressed. Several political leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, were also detained.
Danger of deepfaking
Last month, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two discussed the use of artificial intelligence and the threat of deepfake content created by various AI tools. “In a large country like India there is always the possibility of being misled by deepfakes. If someone does this to me, initially people will believe it,” PM Modi had said.
Misuse of AI Content
China misused AI content in Taiwan's presidential election in January. They had tried to spread misinformation using AI, the report said. Microsoft says it is using AI-generated TV news anchors. Citing an example, the report mentioned that a fake video of election candidate Terry Gou was posted on YouTube. Terry Gow withdrew from the election before the vote. She was seen supporting another candidate.
An attempt to divide voters
By the end of this year, elections will be held in the United States. Chinese groups are using social media platforms to ask divisive questions among voters and gather secret information on key polling statistics, a Microsoft report said.
What if the Flax Typhoon Group?
What exactly is Microsoft's Flax Typhoon Group doing in China? This information has been given. The group has been targeting dozens of organizations in Taiwan for espionage purposes. Flax Typhoon infiltrates the networks of Taiwanese organizations with minimal use of malware for long periods of time. The purpose of this blog is to raise awareness of the techniques used by this group and inform better defenses to protect against future attacks.
Flax Typhoon has been active since mid-2021. It has targeted government agencies and education, manufacturing and information technology organizations in Taiwan. Southeast Asia, as well as some systems in North America and Africa, were affected by Typhoon Flax. Flax Typhoon focuses squarely on credential access. Flax Typhoon is known to use the China Chopper web shell, Metasploit, the Juicy Potato privilege escalation tool, Mimikatz, and the SoftEther virtual private network (VPN) client. Flax Typhoon relies primarily on living-off-the-land techniques and hand-on-keyboard movement.
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