Hi All,
With the rise of advanced tools that enable the rapid creation, alteration, and distribution of images, videos, and other digital content, there are many ways to manipulate what people see and believe. The ability to manipulate media is not new, but the accessibility, speed, and quality of these modifications today, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools, have reached unprecedented levels and may not be caught by traditional verification methods. While many people are using generative AI to create (or modify) and distribute useful creative content faster, it is important to acknowledge the risks and potential harms of the technology when used for malign purposes. For example, malicious actors can use manipulated or fully synthetic media in cyber threat, criminal, or other malign activity against organizations and individuals to impersonate and misinform. In addition, there are broader societal risks around loss of trust online that can impact not just individuals and businesses, but whole communities. Due to this widespread ability to convincingly create or modify media, verifiable media is becoming critical for ensuring transparency by providing context about the media's provenance and integrity with an effective, secure, and robust technical standard. Content provenance solutions aim to establish the lineage of media, including its source and editing history over time. Of these solutions, Content Credentials™ are a provenance solution that uses cryptographically signed metadata describing the provenance of media. This metadata can be attached to the media content during export from software or even at creation on hardware. In addition, Durable Content Credentials add two additional layers of preservation for the retrieval of Content Credentials by adding a digital watermark to the media and implementing a robust media fingerprint matching system. This cybersecurity information sheet, authored by the National Security Agency (NSA), Australian Signals Directorate's Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD's ACSC), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), and United Kingdom National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK), discusses how Content Credentials (especially Durable ones) can provide transparency for the provenance of media, raises awareness of the state of this solution, introduces recommended practices to preserve provenance information, and emphasizes the importance of widespread adoption across the information ecosystem.
https://media.defense.gov/2025/Jan/29/2003634788/-1/-1/0/CSI-CONTENT-CREDENTIALS.PDF
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Michael Roza CPA, CISA, CIA, CC, CCSKv5, CCZTv1, MBA, EMBA, CSA
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