You may have heard the terms "disinformation" and "misinformation" in the past but never really understood their meaning or differentiation.
"Disinformation" is intentionally incorrect information published with intention to mislead people, usually to sway their decisions in a way that is advantageous to the publisher.
"Misinformation" is incomplete information or half-truths. It's not always spread with malicious intent but often has the same outcome: people making decisions without all the facts.
We've heard this brought up more and more often lately. You've probably heard the term "fake news" (which, itself is disinformation typically trumpeted to cover for unfavorable reporting) over and over in the last few years. While the general news mis- and disinformation is worrisome, there are a growing number of other avenues where these tactics are being employed.
When I started in cybersecurity in the US Air Force, it was in what is called Information Warfare or Information Operations. I sat right alongside other service members who were responsible for psychological operations (psyops) and military deception. Their goal was to influence our enemies into making bad decisions. Misinformation and disinformation look eerily like those military practices, just turned on the general public and from shadow groups that we can't see clearly.
At Sullivan Wright, we employ phishing and spam filters for well over a thousand individual email accounts. Don't worry, we aren't reading your emails! However, these filters do pull suspicious messages to protect our users. Sometimes these messages are so phishy or scammy, they are automatically classified and we don't see them. But sometimes they fall in a gray area and need an analyst to review and classify them manually.
A large number of these emails pretend to be expert financial advice with links to supposedly credible analysis by financial and economic experts. Unfortunately for the readers, these are almost entirely clickbait and most likely even detrimental to anyone who takes them to heart.
We've known about these for many years but a recent study shows how prevalent this is around the world. It's unfortunate that Americans take most things at face value and don't apply appropriate skepticism. This is what the attackers are counting on, though. They want you to be gullible or desperate, both is even better.
While these emails don't have any technical malware in them (at least most don't), they are far worse in that they can get you to act against your best interest. Once you do that, there's little anyone can do to get back what you've lost. The attackers are keen at their craft and know how to move money quickly and irreversibly.
We can't say this enough: be skeptical of everything in your inbox, in your text messages, or on your phone. The more you are untrusting, the less you will be a viable target. You may not like it but it's the wold we live in.
References:
https://thehackernews.com/2025/07/baittrap-over-17000-fake-news-websites.html
https://www.ctm360.com/reports/baittrap-rise-of-baiting-news-sites
