An Exploration of Disinformation as a Cybersecurity Threat

Abstract

Disinformation or "fake news" has continuously proven to be a pervasive threat in the digital space. The spread and persistence of disinformation especially in the social networking media sites currently factors as one of the most challenging threat for users and content administrators alike. Its ecosystem encompasses several attributing factors including but not limited to humans as information users and source, social communication model as its channel, current trust models in place as defense and guards against it, and finally the archival correction that may halt its persistence in the social space. In this paper, the author aims to explore the dynamics of the several interacting fields i.e. Psychology and Computer Science, their influence on its phenomenon, which provides an ideal interdisciplinary and holistic approach to its reduction and management. Another equally important section in this paper is its attempt to advocate to formally recognize disinformation as a cybersecurity threat for its prospective future categorization. The possible application of discourse analysis as a potential technological tool for its detection as solution is also discussed.