SECAI Core · phase 11 of 15 · noun
Disinformation
A type of attack that falsifies an information resource that is normally trusted by others.
The Explain card
- Plain English
- Disinformation is deliberately false information planted into a resource that others normally trust, with the intent to deceive. The falsehood is the attack; the trusted channel is the delivery.
- Example
- An attacker seeds fabricated "security advisories" across forums that an AI search assistant indexes. The assistant then confidently tells users to install a malicious patch.
- Why it matters
- AI systems that retrieve from the web inherit whatever the web says. Defenders vet sources, weight provenance, and remember that models amplify falsehoods as fluently as facts.
- Hook
- A lie wearing a trusted uniform.
Word knowledge
How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.
In a sentence
Investigators traced the disinformation to fabricated telemetry reports circulated through a compromised security alert feed.
How it is built
- dis- prefix opposition, reversal, or removal
- inform root to give knowledge or shape understanding
- -ation suffix an action, process, or result
Where it came from
- Origin
- English, formed as a translation of Russian dezinformatsiya, itself modeled on French désinformation
- Entered the language
- 1930s
- What changed
- It first referred chiefly to deceptive intelligence operations and later broadened to strategically misleading material in politics, media, and digital systems.
How it is spelled
- Pattern
- The prefix dis- remains unchanged before an initial i.
- Pattern
- The suffix -ation forms a noun from the verb inform.
Spelled like
- disinterest
- disinclination
- misinformation
- reformation
Broken into chunks
-
dis
- dishonesty
- disagreement
-
inform
- informant
- informative
-
ation
- verification
- authentication
What it sits beside
Same subject
- adversarial attack
- data poisoning
- prompt injection
- model integrity
Same shape
- misinformation
- malinformation
- disorientation
information influence tactics
- disinformation
- propaganda
- impersonation
AI system integrity threats
- data poisoning
- model tampering
- prompt injection
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 11: Threat Landscape: Attack Vectors and Adversarial Techniques
With defenses named, learn what they must defend against — the full catalog of attack techniques targeting AI systems, their inputs, outputs, training pipelines, and supply chains.
