A misinformation attack is the deliberate promotion of false, misleading, or mis-attributed information, often designed to change the beliefs of large numbers of people. Misinformation is an information security problem in part because information technology and the internet are how misinformation messages are generated, transmitted and received. Historically, large-scale misinformation (propaganda) has been the domain of nation-states, but the Internet has also enabled non-state actors to have effects formerly only available to nation-states. Additionally, the Internet has enabled nation-states to conduct influence campaigns in a new manner that is less attributable and can therefore be conducted without substantial risk of starting a war.
Power-motivated misinformation has been studied as an information security problem, information operations problem, a form of conflict, a social problem and a news source pollution. Each of these studies uses a different framing and ontology; we cover the adaptation of existing information security frameworks and principles into a framework and common ontology for these communities to share information about misinformation campaigns incidents and conduct component-wise response to them. We also describe the links between information operations, artefact-based data science and narrative analysis of misinformation campaigns.