Summary: Institutions which present themselves as operating in a particular geography, or as having local knowledge relevant to a narrative, are presenting a local institution persona.
While presenting as a local institution is not an indication of inauthentic behaviour, threat actors may present themselves as such (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona, T0097.201: Local Institution Persona) to add credibility to their narratives, or misrepresent the real opinions of locals in the area.
Legitimate local institutions could use their persona for malicious purposes, or be exploited by threat actors (T0143.001: Authentic Persona, T0097.201: Local Institution Persona). For example, a local institution could take money for using their position to provide legitimacy to a false narrative, or be tricked into doing so without their knowledge.
Associated Techniques and Sub-techniques
T0097.101: Local Persona: Institutions presenting as local may also present locals working within the organisation.
Tactic: TA16 Establish Legitimacy
Parent Technique: T0097 Present Persona
| Associated Technique | Description |
|---|---|
| T0097.101 Local Persona | Institutions presenting as local may also present locals working within the organisation. |
| Incident | Descriptions given for this incident |
|---|---|
| I00094 A glimpse inside a Chinese influence campaign: How bogus news websites blur the line between true and false | “The broader War of Somethings (WoS) network, so dubbed because all the Facebook pages and user accounts in the network are connected to “The War of Somethings” page, behaves very similarly to previous Spamouflage campaigns. “Spamouflage is a coordinated inatuhentic behaviour network attributed to the Chinese state. “Despite the WoS network’s relative sophistication, there are tell-tale signs that it is an influence operation. Several user profile photos display signs of AI generation or do not match the profile’s listed gender.” A network of accounts connected to the facebook page “The War of Somethings” used AI-generated images of people as their profile picture (T0145.002: AI-Generated Account Imagery). |
| Counters | Response types |
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