Microsoft Warns India about Use of AI by China to Disrupt Lok Sabha Polls

Microsoft has warned the Indian government about potential use of Artificial Intelligence by China against India to disrupt and adversely impact the upcoming Lok Sabha General Elections which will be held in seven phases across the country from April 19, 2024 to June 1, 2024. Similar warnings were issued to the governments of the US and South Korea which also go for polls later this year.

According to news reports, an analysis by Microsoft Threat Intelligence discovered that cyber groups backed by the Chinese government and supported by North Korea were planning on attacking India with AI generated Deepfakes and other material to ensure negative outcomes of the polls in the world’s largest democracy. A trial run on using AI to disrupt polls was done against Taiwan, during its presidential elections, by Chinese-backed cyber groups earlier this year, the report added.

Furthermore, Chinese-state backed cyber groups are also preparing to target the US and South Korea during their elections.  “China will create and amplify AI-generated content to benefit its interests. Despite the chances of such content affecting election results remaining low, China’s increasing experimentation in augmenting memes, videos, and audio will likely continue, and may prove more effective down the line,” the report said.

The Microsoft report pointed out that a Chinese cyber actor, Flax Typhoon, which frequently targets telecom networks, targeted India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and the United States in the early fall and winter of 2023. In February, a Chinese state-linked hacker group claimed to have successful targeted key offices of the Indian government, including the he Prime Minister’s Office and the Home Ministry, and businesses like Reliance and Air India.

An independent probe by The Washington Post daily from the US, revealed that China-backed cyber criminals had also breached over 95.2 gigabytes of immigration data from the Indian government. The leaked files were later posted on GitHub by hackers

The report further added, Storm-1376, another Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked actor, posted videos of an AI-generated anchor in Mandarin and English alleging that the United States and India were responsible for the unrest in Myanmar.

Last month, Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. The two held extensive discussions about the use of AI and the pestilence of Deepfake content generated through various AI tools. “In a vast country like India, there is always a possibility of misguiding through Deepfake. What if somebody puts out an obnoxious piece on me? People may believe it initially,” PM Modi said.

The China-backed cyber criminals are likely to clone voices and images of Indian, US and South Korean leaders and use AI generated news anchors to create panic or play havoc with the public in these three countries, the report further warned.