How can we mitigate deepfake attacks to critical infrastructure?

Deepfake Threats against Critical Infrastructure Organizations

This project has concluded.

So What?

Deepfakes pose an increasing challenge to all technology users, including those working in critical infrastructure settings. While state and federal governments have investigated regulating deepfakes, critical infrastructure organizations - public and private sector - are relatively unprotected.

Project Summary

Researchers will investigate how deepfakes can be used to bypass the security of critical infrastructure organizations and undermine public trust in critical infrastructure.

Purpose/Objectives

This research will provide knowledge about the threat of deepfake attacks to critical infrastructure organizations and how these organizations can limit such threats.

Method

This multi-method study is broken into three parts:

• During Phase 1, researchers will interview cybersecurity leaders in critical infrastructure, such as chief information security officers and cybersecurity managers.

• During Phase 2, researchers will conduct experiments investigating how effectively deepfakes can be used to gain access to critical infrastructure and to damage critical infrastructure organizations’ trust among the public.

• During Phase 3, researchers will conduct experiments based on previous phases to discover the most effective methods for mitigating deepfake attacks. This includes identifying trainings and methods for distinguishing illegitimate communications from legitimate communications, as well as communication strategies for external audiences.

Outputs and Impact

• Annual progress reports
• Practitioner reports
• Presentation to end-user working groups

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Research Team

Matthew Jensen, Ph.D.

• University of Oklahoma
• W.P. Wood Professor of Management Information Systems
• Co-Director of the Center for Applied Social Research
• Expertise: Computer-aided decision making, human-computer interaction, computer-mediated communication

Allen Johnston, Ph.D.

• University of Alabama
• Hewson Professor of Cybersecurity
• Expertise: Cybersecurity, behavioral information security, computer-mediated communication

Deanna House, Ph.D.

• University of Nebraska at Omaha
• Assistant Professor
• Lead Researcher of the NCITE Cyber Threat Analysis Lab (CTAL)
• Co-director of the UNO Nebraska Deterrence Lab
• Expertise: Behavioral information security, privacy, quantitative risk, critical infrastructure, deterrence