#FactCheck - AI Generated image of Virat Kohli falsely claims to be sand art of a child
Executive Summary:
The picture of a boy making sand art of Indian Cricketer Virat Kohli spreading in social media, claims to be false. The picture which was portrayed, revealed not to be a real sand art. The analyses using AI technology like 'Hive' and ‘Content at scale AI detection’ confirms that the images are entirely generated by artificial intelligence. The netizens are sharing these pictures in social media without knowing that it is computer generated by deep fake techniques.
Claims:
The collage of beautiful pictures displays a young boy creating sand art of Indian Cricketer Virat Kohli.
Fact Check:
When we checked on the posts, we found some anomalies in each photo. Those anomalies are common in AI-generated images.
The anomalies such as the abnormal shape of the child’s feet, blended logo with sand color in the second image, and the wrong spelling ‘spoot’ instead of ‘sport’n were seen in the picture. The cricket bat is straight which in the case of sand made portrait it’s odd. In the left hand of the child, there’s a tattoo imprinted while in other photos the child's left hand has no tattoo. Additionally, the face of the boy in the second image does not match the face in other images. These made us more suspicious of the images being a synthetic media.
We then checked on an AI-generated image detection tool named, ‘Hive’. Hive was found to be 99.99% AI-generated. We then checked from another detection tool named, “Content at scale”
Hence, we conclude that the viral collage of images is AI-generated but not sand art of any child. The Claim made is false and misleading.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the claim that the pictures showing a sand art image of Indian cricket star Virat Kohli made by a child is false. Using an AI technology detection tool and analyzing the photos, it appears that they were probably created by an AI image-generated tool rather than by a real sand artist. Therefore, the images do not accurately represent the alleged claim and creator.
Claim: A young boy has created sand art of Indian Cricketer Virat Kohli
Claimed on: X, Facebook, Instagram
Fact Check: Fake & Misleading
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Introduction
According to a draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023, the Indian government may have the authority to reduce the age at which users can agree to data processing to 14 years. Companies requesting consent to process children’s data, on the other hand, must demonstrate that the information is handled in a “verifiably safe” manner.
The Central Government might change the age limit for consent
The proposed Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 in India attempts to protect child’s personal data under the age of 14 through several provisions. The proposed lower age of consent in India under the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 is to loosen relevant norms and fulfil the demands of Internet corporations. After a year, the government may reconsider the definition of a child with the goal of expanding coverage to children under the age of 14. The proposed shift in the age of consent has elicited varied views, with some experts suggesting that it might potentially expose children to data processing concerns.
The definition of a child is understood to have been amended in the data protection Bill, which is anticipated to be submitted in Parliament’s Monsoon session, to an “individual who has not completed the age of eighteen years or such lower age as the central government may notify.” A child was defined as an “individual who has not completed eighteen years of age” in the 2022 draft.
Under deemed consent, the government has also added the 'legitimate business interest' clause
This clause allows businesses to process personal data without obtaining explicit consent if it is required for their legitimate business interests. The measure recognises that corporations have legitimate objectives, such as innovation, that can be pursued without jeopardising privacy.
Change in Data Protection Boards
The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022, India’s new plan to secure personal data, represents a significant shift in strategy by emphasising outcomes rather than legislative compliance. This amendment will strengthen the Data Protection Board’s position, as its judgments on noncompliance complaints will establish India’s first systematic jurisprudence on data protection. The Cabinet has approved the bill and may be introduced in Parliament in the Monsoon session starting on July 20.
The draft law leaves the selection of the Data Protection Board’s chairperson and members solely to the discretion of the central government, making it a central government set-up board. The government retains control over the board’s composition, terms of service, and so on. The bill does specify, however, that the Data Protection Board would be completely independent and will have a strictly adjudicatory procedure to adjudicate data breaches. It has the same status as a civil court, and its rulings can be appealed.
India's first regulatory body in Charge of preserving privacy
Some expected amendments to the law include a blacklist of countries to which Indian data cannot be transferred and fewer penalties for data breaches. The bill’s scope is limited to processing digital personal data within Indian territory, which means that any offline personal data and anything not digitised will be exempt from the legislation’s jurisdiction. Furthermore, the measure is silent on the governance of digital paper records.
Conclusion
The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 is a much-needed piece of legislation that will replace India’s current data protection regime and assist in preserving individuals’ rights. Central Government is looking for a change in the age for consent from 18 to 14 years. The bill underlines the need for verifiable parental consent before processing a child’s personal data, including those under 18. This section seeks to ensure that parents or legal guardians have a say in the processing of their child’s personal data.
Executive Summary:
Our research has determined that a widely circulated social media image purportedly showing astronaut Sunita Williams with U.S. President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Elon Musk following her return from space is AI-generated. There is no verifiable evidence to suggest that such a meeting took place or was officially announced. The image exhibits clear indicators of AI generation, including inconsistencies in facial features and unnatural detailing.
Claim:
It was claimed on social media that after returning to Earth from space, astronaut Sunita Williams met with U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, as shown in a circulated picture.
Fact Check:
Following a comprehensive analysis using Hive Moderation, the image has been verified as fake and AI-generated. Distinct signs of AI manipulation include unnatural skin texture, inconsistent lighting, and distorted facial features. Furthermore, no credible news sources or official reports substantiate or confirm such a meeting. The image is likely a digitally altered post designed to mislead viewers.
While reviewing the accounts that shared the image, we found that former Indian cricketer Manoj Tiwary had also posted the same image and a video of a space capsule returning, congratulating Sunita Williams on her homecoming. Notably, the image featured a Grok watermark in the bottom right corner, confirming that it was AI-generated.
Additionally, we discovered a post from Grok on X (formerly known as Twitter) featuring the watermark, stating that the image was likely AI-generated.
Conclusion:
As per our research on the viral image of Sunita Williams with Donald Trump and Elon Musk is AI-generated. Indicators such as unnatural facial features, lighting inconsistencies, and a Grok watermark suggest digital manipulation. No credible sources validate the meeting, and a post from Grok on X further supports this finding. This case underscores the need for careful verification before sharing online content to prevent the spread of misinformation.
- Claim: Sunita Williams met Donald Trump and Elon Musk after her space mission.
- Claimed On: Social Media
- Fact Check: False and Misleading
Overview:
The rapid digitization of educational institutions in India has created both opportunities and challenges. While technology has improved access to education and administrative efficiency, it has also exposed institutions to significant cyber threats. This report, published by CyberPeace, examines the types, causes, impacts, and preventive measures related to cyber risks in Indian educational institutions. It highlights global best practices, national strategies, and actionable recommendations to mitigate these threats.
Significance of the Study:
The pandemic-induced shift to online learning, combined with limited cybersecurity budgets, has made educational institutions prime targets for cyberattacks. These threats compromise sensitive student, faculty, and institutional data, leading to operational disruptions, financial losses, and reputational damage. Globally, educational institutions face similar challenges, emphasizing the need for universal and localized responses.
Threat Faced by Education Institutions:
Based on the insights from the CyberPeace’s report titled 'Exploring Cyber Threats and Digital Risks in Indian Educational Institutions', this concise blog provides a comprehensive overview of cybersecurity threats and risks faced by educational institutions, along with essential details to address these challenges.
🎣 Phishing: Phishing is a social engineering tactic where cyber criminals impersonate trusted sources to steal sensitive information, such as login credentials and financial details. It often involves deceptive emails or messages that lead to counterfeit websites, pressuring victims to provide information quickly. Variants include spear phishing, smishing, and vishing.
💰 Ransomware: Ransomware is malware that locks users out of their systems or data until a ransom is paid. It spreads through phishing emails, malvertising, and exploiting vulnerabilities, causing downtime, data leaks, and theft. Ransom demands can range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
🌐 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): DDoS attacks overwhelm servers, denying users access to websites and disrupting daily operations, which can hinder students and teachers from accessing learning resources or submitting assignments. These attacks are relatively easy to execute, especially against poorly protected networks, and can be carried out by amateur cybercriminals, including students or staff, seeking to cause disruptions for various reasons
🕵️ Cyber Espionage: Higher education institutions, particularly research-focused universities, are vulnerable to spyware, insider threats, and cyber espionage. Spyware is unauthorized software that collects sensitive information or damages devices. Insider threats arise from negligent or malicious individuals, such as staff or vendors, who misuse their access to steal intellectual property or cause data leaks..
🔒 Data Theft: Data theft is a major threat to educational institutions, which store valuable personal and research information. Cybercriminals may sell this data or use it for extortion, while stealing university research can provide unfair competitive advantages. These attacks can go undetected for long periods, as seen in the University of California, Berkeley breach, where hackers allegedly stole 160,000 medical records over several months.
🛠️ SQL Injection: SQL injection (SQLI) is an attack that uses malicious code to manipulate backend databases, granting unauthorized access to sensitive information like customer details. Successful SQLI attacks can result in data deletion, unauthorized viewing of user lists, or administrative access to the database.
🔍Eavesdropping attack: An eavesdropping breach, or sniffing, is a network attack where cybercriminals steal information from unsecured transmissions between devices. These attacks are hard to detect since they don't cause abnormal data activity. Attackers often use network monitors, like sniffers, to intercept data during transmission.
🤖 AI-Powered Attacks: AI enhances cyber attacks like identity theft, password cracking, and denial-of-service attacks, making them more powerful, efficient, and automated. It can be used to inflict harm, steal information, cause emotional distress, disrupt organizations, and even threaten national security by shutting down services or cutting power to entire regions
Insights from Project eKawach
The CyberPeace Research Wing, in collaboration with SAKEC CyberPeace Center of Excellence (CCoE) and Autobot Infosec Private Limited, conducted a study simulating educational institutions' networks to gather intelligence on cyber threats. As part of the e-Kawach project, a nationwide initiative to strengthen cybersecurity, threat intelligence sensors were deployed to monitor internet traffic and analyze real-time cyber attacks from July 2023 to April 2024, revealing critical insights into the evolving cyber threat landscape.
Cyber Attack Trends
Between July 2023 and April 2024, the e-Kawach network recorded 217,886 cyberattacks from IP addresses worldwide, with a significant portion originating from countries including the United States, China, Germany, South Korea, Brazil, Netherlands, Russia, France, Vietnam, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. However, attributing these attacks to specific nations or actors is complex, as threat actors often use techniques like exploiting resources from other countries, or employing VPNs and proxies to obscure their true locations, making it difficult to pinpoint the real origin of the attacks.
Brute Force Attack:
The analysis uncovered an extensive use of automated tools in brute force attacks, with 8,337 unique usernames and 54,784 unique passwords identified. Among these, the most frequently targeted username was “root,” which accounted for over 200,000 attempts. Other commonly targeted usernames included: "admin", "test", "user", "oracle", "ubuntu", "guest", "ftpuser", "pi", "support"
Similarly, the study identified several weak passwords commonly targeted by attackers. “123456” was attempted over 3,500 times, followed by “password” with over 2,500 attempts. Other frequently targeted passwords included: "1234", "12345", "12345678", "admin", "123", "root", "test", "raspberry", "admin123", "123456789"
Insights from Threat Landscape Analysis
Research done by the USI - CyberPeace Centre of Excellence (CCoE) and Resecurity has uncovered several breached databases belonging to public, private, and government universities in India, highlighting significant cybersecurity threats in the education sector. The research aims to identify and mitigate cybersecurity risks without harming individuals or assigning blame, based on data available at the time, which may evolve with new information. Institutions were assigned risk ratings that descend from A to F, with most falling under a D rating, indicating numerous security vulnerabilities. Institutions rated D or F are 5.4 times more likely to experience data breaches compared to those rated A or B. Immediate action is recommended to address the identified risks.
Risk Findings :
The risk findings for the institutions are summarized through a pie chart, highlighting factors such as data breaches, dark web activity, botnet activity, and phishing/domain squatting. Data breaches and botnet activity are significantly higher compared to dark web leakages and phishing/domain squatting. The findings show 393,518 instances of data breaches, 339,442 instances of botnet activity, 7,926 instances related to the dark web and phishing & domain activity - 6711.
Key Indicators: Multiple instances of data breaches containing credentials (email/passwords) in plain text.
- Botnet activity indicating network hosts compromised by malware.
- Credentials from third-party government and non-governmental websites linked to official institutional emails
- Details of software applications, drivers installed on compromised hosts.
- Sensitive cookie data exfiltrated from various browsers.
- IP addresses of compromised systems.
- Login credentials for different Android applications.
Below is the sample detail of one of the top educational institutions that provides the insights about the higher rate of data breaches, botnet activity, dark web activities and phishing & domain squatting.
Risk Detection:
It indicates the number of data breaches, network hygiene, dark web activities, botnet activities, cloud security, phishing & domain squatting, media monitoring and miscellaneous risks. In the below example, we are able to see the highest number of data breaches and botnet activities in the sample particular domain.
Risk Changes:
Risk by Categories:
Risk is categorized with factors such as high, medium and low, the risk is at high level for data breaches and botnet activities.
Challenges Faced by Educational Institutions
Educational institutions face cyberattack risks, the challenges leading to cyberattack incidents in educational institutions are as follows:
🔒 Lack of a Security Framework: A key challenge in cybersecurity for educational institutions is the lack of a dedicated framework for higher education. Existing frameworks like ISO 27001, NIST, COBIT, and ITIL are designed for commercial organizations and are often difficult and costly to implement. Consequently, many educational institutions in India do not have a clearly defined cybersecurity framework.
🔑 Diverse User Accounts: Educational institutions manage numerous accounts for staff, students, alumni, and third-party contractors, with high user turnover. The continuous influx of new users makes maintaining account security a challenge, requiring effective systems and comprehensive security training for all users.
📚 Limited Awareness: Cybersecurity awareness among students, parents, teachers, and staff in educational institutions is limited due to the recent and rapid integration of technology. The surge in tech use, accelerated by the pandemic, has outpaced stakeholders' ability to address cybersecurity issues, leaving them unprepared to manage or train others on these challenges.
📱 Increased Use of Personal/Shared Devices: The growing reliance on unvetted personal/Shared devices for academic and administrative activities amplifies security risks.
💬 Lack of Incident Reporting: Educational institutions often neglect reporting cyber incidents, increasing vulnerability to future attacks. It is essential to report all cases, from minor to severe, to strengthen cybersecurity and institutional resilience.
Impact of Cybersecurity Attacks on Educational Institutions
Cybersecurity attacks on educational institutions lead to learning disruptions, financial losses, and data breaches. They also harm the institution's reputation and pose security risks to students. The following are the impacts of cybersecurity attacks on educational institutions:
📚Impact on the Learning Process: A report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that cyberattacks on school districts resulted in learning losses ranging from three days to three weeks, with recovery times taking between two to nine months.
💸Financial Loss: US schools reported financial losses ranging from $50,000 to $1 million due to expenses like hardware replacement and cybersecurity upgrades, with recovery taking an average of 2 to 9 months.
🔒Data Security Breaches: Cyberattacks exposed sensitive data, including grades, social security numbers, and bullying reports. Accidental breaches were often caused by staff, accounting for 21 out of 25 cases, while intentional breaches by students, comprising 27 out of 52 cases, frequently involved tampering with grades.
⚠️Data Security Breach: Cyberattacks on schools result in breaches of personal information, including grades and social security numbers, causing emotional, physical, and financial harm. These breaches can be intentional or accidental, with a US study showing staff responsible for most accidental breaches (21 out of 25) and students primarily behind intentional breaches (27 out of 52) to change grades.
🏫Impact on Institutional Reputation: Cyberattacks damaged the reputation of educational institutions, eroding trust among students, staff, and families. Negative media coverage and scrutiny impacted staff retention, student admissions, and overall credibility.
🛡️ Impact on Student Safety: Cyberattacks compromised student safety and privacy. For example, breaches like live-streaming school CCTV footage caused severe distress, negatively impacting students' sense of security and mental well-being.
CyberPeace Advisory:
CyberPeace emphasizes the importance of vigilance and proactive measures to address cybersecurity risks:
- Develop effective incident response plans: Establish a clear and structured plan to quickly identify, respond to, and recover from cyber threats. Ensure that staff are well-trained and know their roles during an attack to minimize disruption and prevent further damage.
- Implement access controls with role-based permissions: Restrict access to sensitive information based on individual roles within the institution. This ensures that only authorized personnel can access certain data, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches.
- Regularly update software and conduct cybersecurity training: Keep all software and systems up-to-date with the latest security patches to close vulnerabilities. Provide ongoing cybersecurity awareness training for students and staff to equip them with the knowledge to prevent attacks, such as phishing.
- Ensure regular and secure backups of critical data: Perform regular backups of essential data and store them securely in case of cyber incidents like ransomware. This ensures that, if data is compromised, it can be restored quickly, minimizing downtime.
- Adopt multi-factor authentication (MFA): Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication(MFA) for accessing sensitive systems or information to strengthen security. MFA adds an extra layer of protection by requiring users to verify their identity through more than one method, such as a password and a one-time code.
- Deploy anti-malware tools: Use advanced anti-malware software to detect, block, and remove malicious programs. This helps protect institutional systems from viruses, ransomware, and other forms of malware that can compromise data security.
- Monitor networks using intrusion detection systems (IDS): Implement IDS to monitor network traffic and detect suspicious activity. By identifying threats in real time, institutions can respond quickly to prevent breaches and minimize potential damage.
- Conduct penetration testing: Regularly conduct penetration testing to simulate cyberattacks and assess the security of institutional networks. This proactive approach helps identify vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by actual attackers.
- Collaborate with cybersecurity firms: Partner with cybersecurity experts to benefit from specialized knowledge and advanced security solutions. Collaboration provides access to the latest technologies, threat intelligence, and best practices to enhance the institution's overall cybersecurity posture.
- Share best practices across institutions: Create forums for collaboration among educational institutions to exchange knowledge and strategies for cybersecurity. Sharing successful practices helps build a collective defense against common threats and improves security across the education sector.
Conclusion:
The increasing cyber threats to Indian educational institutions demand immediate attention and action. With vulnerabilities like data breaches, botnet activities, and outdated infrastructure, institutions must prioritize effective cybersecurity measures. By adopting proactive strategies such as regular software updates, multi-factor authentication, and incident response plans, educational institutions can mitigate risks and safeguard sensitive data. Collaborative efforts, awareness, and investment in cybersecurity will be essential to creating a secure digital environment for academia.
