#FactCheck -Viral Video of Israeli Strike in Lebanon Misrepresented as Iranian Attack on US Base in Kuwait
Executive Summary
Amid heightened tensions in West Asia following the conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran, a video showing a large explosion behind a building is being widely shared on social media.
Users claim that the footage shows an Iranian missile strike on a US military base in Kuwait. However, CyberPeace Research Wing research found the claim to be misleading. The viral video is actually from an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon. While Kuwait said its air defence systems intercepted missiles and drones during regional hostilities, the viral footage has no connection to any alleged attack on a US base in Kuwait.
Claim
An Instagram user, “indiscope24hr,” shared the video on May 28, 2026, with text overlaid on the clip stating:“Iran launches a deadly missile attack on a US base in Kuwait.”The caption claimed that Iran targeted a US airbase in retaliation for American military action and that Kuwait’s air defence systems were intercepting incoming missiles and drones.
Fact Check
To verify the claim, we extracted key frames from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens. This led us to a post shared on May 28, 2026, by the Instagram account “iltv_israel,” which identified the footage as an Israeli Air Force strike on a Hezbollah target in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.
Further research found the same footage in a video report uploaded by the New York Post’s YouTube channel on May 28, 2026. According to the report, Israel carried out strikes targeting Hezbollah positions in Tyre, southern Lebanon.
We also found the clip in a video report published by NBC News. The report stated that Israel intensified strikes in southern Lebanon despite an existing ceasefire agreement.
The matching visuals across these reports confirm that the viral footage originated from Lebanon and not from Kuwait.
Conclusion
The viral claim is misleading. The video does not show an Iranian missile strike on a US military base in Kuwait. It actually depicts an Israeli airstrike carried out in the Lebanese city of Tyre on May 28, 2026, and is being shared with a false context on social media.
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Introduction
Imagine receiving a WhatsApp message from your CEO late on a Friday afternoon. The message is urgent: a confidential business deal requires an immediate wire transfer before markets close. The profile picture matches, the tone sounds familiar, and the account it came from has your CEO's name on it. Everything appears legitimate except it is not. This is the essence of the 'Boss Scam,' a sophisticated form of CEO impersonation fraud that has emerged as one of the most financially devastating cybercrime trends of 2025. India's Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, issued an urgent national advisory on this threat in June 2025, warning that organisations across the country are falling victim to an evolved and technically advanced version of executive impersonation fraud that bypasses many traditional cybersecurity safeguards.
Understanding the Boss Scam
What Is CEO Impersonation Fraud?
CEO fraud, also known as Business Email Compromise (BEC) or executive impersonation fraud, is a targeted cyberattack in which criminals assume the digital identity of a high-ranking executive most commonly the Chief Executive Officer to deceive subordinate employees into authorising fraudulent financial transactions or divulging sensitive information. Unlike generic phishing campaigns that cast a wide net, CEO fraud is a precision attack. Cybercriminals invest significant time and resources researching their targets, studying organisational hierarchies, communication styles, and internal financial workflows before executing the scam. The attack is devastatingly effective because it weaponises one of the most powerful forces in any workplace: authority. An instruction that appears to originate from the CEO carries an implicit demand for immediate compliance, often bypassing normal checks and verification procedures. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has consistently identified BEC as one of the most financially destructive categories of cybercrime, with adjusted losses of approximately USD 2.77 billion reported in 2024 alone across the United States.
The New and Evolved Variant: India's I4C Advisory
The variant identified by India's I4C represents a dangerous evolution of traditional CEO fraud. The earlier versions of this scam relied on spoofed email addresses or fake WhatsApp profiles that merely mimicked an executive's account. Employees were trained to spot tell-tale warning signs suspicious domains, unusual sender addresses, or spelling errors in email IDs. The latest
Boss Scam variant eliminates many of these red flags entirely by hijacking the executive's actual and legitimate WhatsApp account. This sophisticated attack begins not with the employee, but with the CEO. Cybercriminals approach senior executives through email or WhatsApp while posing as regulatory authorities in India's context, this includes impersonating officials from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) or other government bodies. These messages claim an urgent compliance violation or regulatory breach requiring immediate remedial action. The communication contains a compressed ZIP archive, which the executive is prompted to open. Inside the archive are malicious executable (.exe) and Dynamic Link Library (.dll) files that, when run on a Windows system, deploy a Trojan dropper a form of malware capable of establishing persistent access on the device and hijacking active WhatsApp Web session tokens.
Once the session token is compromised, the attacker gains complete control over the executive's WhatsApp account without needing the phone, password, or any two-factor authentication code. The legitimate account is now in criminal hands, and any message sent from it appears entirely authentic to recipients.
How the Boss Scam Operates: A Step-by-Step Breakdown
Stage 1: Targeting the Executive: The operation begins with careful reconnaissance. Attackers study the target organisation's leadership, identify the CEO or a senior executive, and gather publicly available information about their communication patterns, business relationships, and company operations through LinkedIn, corporate websites, and news sources. They then contact the executive under a false regulatory identity, engineering a sense of crisis and urgency.
Stage 2: Malware Deployment:The fraudulent regulatory communication contains a ZIP file disguised as a compliance document, a security patch, or a mandatory software update. Upon execution on a Windows machine, the embedded malware installs itself and begins hijacking the WhatsApp Web session. Critically, in many documented cases, the CEO innocently forwards this regulatory message and the malicious attachment to their own finance officer or IT team, inadvertently widening the attack surface.
Stage 3: Account Takeover and Impersonation:With the CEO's legitimate WhatsApp account now under their control, cybercriminals send highly convincing messages to subordinate staff, particularly those in finance, accounts payable, or treasury functions. These messages carry the full weight of genuine executive authority correct name, profile photo, and account history making them extraordinarily difficult to distinguish from authentic communications.
Stage 4: The Financial Strike:The fraudulent instruction typically requests an urgent, confidential wire transfer to an unfamiliar account, often accompanied by requests for complete secrecy. The employee, believing the instruction to be genuine and fearing the consequences of non-compliance with a directive from their CEO, processes the transaction. By the time the fraud is discovered, the funds have been routed through multiple mule accounts, making recovery extremely difficult.
The Broader Landscape: Scale and Impact
The Boss Scam is not an isolated Indian phenomenon it represents the cutting edge of a global epidemic of executive impersonation fraud. According to the FBI's data, BEC has been the costliest category of cybercrime for several years running, with cumulative global losses that officials have described as exceeding USD 50 billion over the past decade. A 2025 fraud survey found that 90 per cent of U.S. companies experienced attempted cyber-fraud in 2024, with business email compromise and impersonation scams surging by 103 per cent year-on-year. The technological sophistication of these attacks has grown in lockstep with the availability of AI tools. In early 2024, a finance worker at a multinational firm in Hong Kong was tricked into authorising a payment of USD 25 million after attending a video conference in which the CFO and other senior executives were entirely fabricated using deepfake technology. In March 2025, a similar attack unfolded in Singapore, where a finance director authorised nearly USD 499,000 after joining a Zoom call populated entirely by AI-generated deepfakes of company executives. Deepfake attacks against businesses reportedly surged by 3,000 per cent in 2023, and voice cloning fraud rose by 680 per cent the following year. In India, the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau reported over 300 complaints related to the Boss Scam variant alone within a twenty-day period in June 2025. In one prominent case, formerPrime Minister I.K. Gujral's son, Naresh Gujral, reportedly lost approximately Rs 7.8 crorethrough a messaging-app impersonation scheme targeting his company's Chief Financial Officer.
Warning Signs Every Employee Must Recognise
Identifying a Boss Scam attempt requires situational awareness and healthy scepticism. The following red flags should prompt immediate caution:
● Any request for urgent or secret financial transfers received via WhatsApp or email, without prior discussion or formal documentation.
● Instructions to bypass standard approval procedures or to maintain secrecy from colleagues or senior management.
● Compressed files (.zip, .rar) or executable attachments received from any source, including apparently known contacts, claiming to be compliance documents or regulatory updates.
● Messages from executives at unusual hours, particularly those emphasising that a transaction must be completed immediately.
● Claims that a request comes from a government regulator, such as the RBI, delivered through informal channels like WhatsApp.
● Any communication that creates extreme urgency, invokes authority, and simultaneously demands confidentiality the classic triangle of social engineering manipulation. Protective Measures: Defending Against the Boss Scam
For Employees and Finance Teams
The I4C advisory and global cybersecurity authorities recommend several concrete steps that employees can take. The most important is to independently verify any urgent financial instruction through a direct voice call or in-person confirmation before taking action, regardless of how convincing the digital message appears. No financial transaction of significance should be authorised on the basis of a WhatsApp message or email alone.
For Organisations and Leadership
Organisations must implement multi-layered verification protocols for all wire transfers above a defined threshold, making dual authorisation and out-of-band verification mandatory. IT teams should deploy updated malware detection tools, enforce software restriction policies that block unauthorised executable files, and regularly audit devices for signs of compromise. WhatsApp linked devices should be reviewed periodically. Leadership must also commit to regular, mandatory cybersecurity awareness training for all staff, with particular attention to social engineering tactics. The I4C has also emphasised that legitimate regulatory bodies including the RBI , do not distribute software, compliance tools, or security patches via WhatsApp or email attachments. Any such communication must be treated as a potential attack vector and reported immediately.
Conclusion
The Boss Scam exploits organisational trust and human psychology rather than technical vulnerabilities and with deepfake technology now capable of replicating familiar voices and faces, traditional verification instincts are no longer reliable. The strongest defence is a culture of verification without embarrassment, where questioning an unusual instruction is seen as diligence, not insubordination. Awareness, clear protocols, and scepticism towards urgency remain our most powerful tools. If you've encountered such a scam, contact India's National Cybercrime Helpline at 1930 or report at cybercrime.gov.in.
References
- https://www.cybercrime.gov.in
- https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/boss-scam-ceo-impersonation-fraudgovt- advisory-i4c-126062300353_1.html
- https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/boss-scam-all-about-the-new-cyber-fraudtargeting- corporates-and-precautions-listed-by-mha-2026-06-23-1045827
- https://www.freepressjournal.in/business/boss-scam-on-whatsapp-new-ceo-fraudbypasses- traditional-cybersecurity-checks
- https://hyderabadmail.com/tgcsb-warns-boss-scam-ceo-impersonation-fraud-malwarealert/
- https://www.newkerala.com/news/a/rising-boss-scam-threat-targets-senior-executiveswarns- 242.html
- https://www.ic3.gov
- https://www.mcafee.com/learn/is-that-really-your-boss/
- https://abnormal.ai/glossary/ceo-fraud
- https://www.brside.com/blog/deepfake-ceo-fraud-50m-voice-cloning-threat-cfos
- https://www.eftsure.com/blog/cyber-crime/these-7-deepfake-ceo-scams-prove-that-nobusiness- is-safe/
- https://www.knowbe4.com/ceo-fraud
- https://trustpair.com/blog/ceo-fraud-how-to-protect-your-organization-from-fraudsters/
- https://hacked.com/services/executive-impersonation-and-ceo-fraud-protecting-high-networth- individuals/
- https://www.certifid.com/article/ceo-fraud
Executive Summary
A viral image circulating on social media claims that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay touched the feet of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his swearing-in ceremony, while Congress and several other parties extended support to his government. The image is being widely shared with captions suggesting it captures a real political moment. However, CyberPeace Research Wing research has found the claim to be false. The image is AI-generated and does not depict any real event.
Claim
A Facebook user shared the viral image on May 10, 2026, claiming that TVK chief and actor Vijay had taken oath as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The post further claimed that during the ceremony, Vijay touched Rahul Gandhi’s feet to seek blessings, and the gesture was applauded by leaders present on stage. The post, along with archived links and screenshots, is being circulated as authentic evidence of the alleged incident.
- https://www.facebook.com/100057774695228/posts/1389222123013598/?rdid=FEzRYpVvSIieeUbj#
- https://archive.ph/kv4e1
Fact Check
A keyword-based search on Google did not return any credible news reports supporting the claim or confirming such an event. A closer visual examination of the image raised strong suspicions of AI manipulation, prompting verification through AI detection tools. When the image was analyzed using the SIGHTENGINE detection tool, the results indicated that the image is 99% likely to be AI-generated.
Further verification using another AI detection platform, HIVE MODERATION, also flagged the image as synthetic, showing an 81% probability of being AI-generated.
Conclusion
The research clearly shows that the viral image is not real. It has been generated using artificial intelligence and is being falsely shared as a real political event.
Introduction
One of the biggest gaming populations in the world today is found in India. Every day, hundreds of millions of young Indians engage with streaming services, immersive digital content, mobile games and e-sports ecosystems. Yet, despite this massive scale of participation, India remains largely absent from the global conversation on original gaming intellectual property. Although the nation produces very few globally significant gaming worlds of its own, it consumes games on an astonishing scale. This paradox highlights a more serious structural issue with the gaming discourse in India. Our national conversation around gaming often begins and ends with regulation i.e., online betting, taxation, fantasy gaming legality, addiction and compliance. Although these worries are valid they have inadvertently obscured a much more crucial query: is India creating a gaming industry or is it just regulating a gaming market? Various subject-matter experts have expressed their views on this issue, like Shailendra Vikram Singh Former Deputy Secretary (Cyber & Information Security), Ministry of Home Affairs who is of the opinion,
“I believe India’s gaming story presents a unique paradox. While we are one of the world’s largest gaming markets, we have yet to fully realize gaming’s potential as a strategic pillar of the AVGC vision. Much of the conversation remains focused on regulation and consumption, whereas the larger opportunity lies in creation, innovation, and global competitiveness.
In my view, gaming should be recognized as a strategic creative and digital industry. It has the potential to generate high-value employment, foster indigenous intellectual property, and strengthen capabilities in design, storytelling, animation, immersive technologies, and emerging digital skills. Beyond its economic value, gaming can also serve as a powerful platform for education, skilling, and public engagement.
I also see gaming as an important medium for bringing India’s rich cultural heritage, historical narratives, and diverse traditions to global audiences through interactive storytelling. As digital experiences increasingly shape how younger generations learn, engage, and understand the world, culturally rooted content can become a source of both creative expression and national soft power.
At the same time, sustainable growth must be built on trust. Strong safeguards for cybersecurity, child protection, user safety, responsible gaming, and data governance are essential to creating a resilient and trusted ecosystem.
To realize the full promise of the AVGC vision, I believe India must aspire to be more than a large gaming market. A nation of gamers must ultimately become a nation of game creators.”
The Misplaced Focus of Regulating Bodies
A country with one of the world’s oldest storytelling civilizations should not remain from the world’s most influential storytelling medium. Examining how other nations viewed gaming as a strategic cultural enterprise highlights the disparity even further. Japan turned gaming into a tool of soft power by exporting global icons like Mario, Pokémon and Zelda. Along with K-pop and digital culture, South Korea incorporated gaming into its larger cultural export sector. With businesses like Tencent and games like Genshin Impact and Black Myth: Wukong, China is now aggressively marketing gaming as a geopolitical and technological impact ecosystem.
Through The Witcher, Poland even showed how local folklore based storytelling may achieve cultural relevance on a worldwide scale. In contrast, India contributes very little to the global gaming imagination despite having one of the strongest civilisational storytelling traditions in human history, including the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Buddhist Narratives, tribal folklore, Indic mythology and regional legends.
Artificial Intelligence and Lore of Lost Opportunities
The arrival of artificial intelligence now changes this equation dramatically. AI is lowering the barriers to creativity in ways previously unimaginable. For character design, procedural storytelling, localisation, environment creation, NPC interactions, voice synthesis and animation pipelines, independent producers and small studios can now use generative AI. Agile creative ecosystems are increasingly able to accomplish what formerly required enormous infrastructure and production teams. This offers India a once-in-a-lifetime chance to overcome conventional developmental barriers in the gaming sector. India may become a global center for AI-assisted storytelling, culturally grounded gaming storylines and scalable independent game production instead of competing just through capital-intensive AAA ecosystems.
The AVGC Promotion Task Force for India’s Digital future explicitly highlighted the significance of intellectual property development, academic integration, skilling and incubation systems. However, India still views gaming more as a compliance industry than as a significant creative economy. Economists use revenue forecasts to discuss gaming. Taxation frameworks are used by policymakers to discuss it. However, narrative ownership, digital culture, creative sovereignty and gaming as a long-term civilisational export are not sufficiently discussed.
Playing Everyone Else’s Game
The actual danger does not lie in the fact India won’t grow into a sizable gaming industry. The change has already taken place. The bigger risk is that, in a global market that is becoming more and more controlled by foreign narratives, foreign engines and foreign platforms, India may permanently remain a consumer ecosystem. Processors and graphic engines won’t be the only factors influencing gaming in the future, cultures that can emotionally engage worlds will also play a significant role. India possesses the depth of civilisation, creative heritage, technical prowess and population size necessary to develop into such a creator economy. It does not, however, have a consistent institutional focus on supporting studios, storytellers, animators and original intellectual property ecosystems.
References
- AVGC Promotion Task Force Report, Government of India
- KPMG India Media & Entertainment Reports
- EY-FICCI Media & Entertainment Industry Reports
- Newzoo Global Games Market Reports
- Lumikai “State of India Gaming” Reports
- UNESCO Reports on Cultural & Creative Industries
- World Economic Forum reports on AI and Creative Economies
