The Meteoric Rise of Disinformation Security and Narrative Intelligence

• Gartner Predicts 50% of Enterprises Will Invest in Disinformation Security and TrustOps by 2027
• Gartner Predicts Enterprise Spending on Battling Misinformation and Disinformation Will Surpass $30 Billion by 2028

The cybersecurity world has shifted. Threat actors and nation states are operationalizing narrative warfare against countries, companies, and executives. Enterprises are losing clarity in their decisions to AI-driven influence campaigns. Platforms are facing massive synthetic escalation risk. Executive teams and cybersecurity leaders are scrambling for visibility and capabilities they cannot enable quickly enough across this new threat vector, ‘Narrative Attacks.’ The cost of narrative attacks created by disinformation, misinformation, and deepfakes that cause financial, operational, reputational, and physical harm has collapsed. The consequences of them have exploded. The World Economic Forum agrees, naming disinformation and misinformation the #1 global threat for the second year in a row. So does Gartner, which predicts, ‘By 2028, enterprise spending on battling malinformation will surpass $30 billion, cannibalizing 10% of marketing and cybersecurity budgets to combat a multi-front threat.’

LEARN: What Is Narrative Intelligence?

How did the shift happen so quickly? In 2024, we went to market using the term ‘Narrative Attack’, defined as any assertion that shapes perception about a person, place, or thing in the information ecosystem that can cause harm. We described it as a new threat vector that can start with a single post and rapidly spin out of control, putting trust in organizations at risk, target executives, and negatively impact a company’s market value by as much as 25%. As we talked to executives and cybersecurity leaders, the feedback they gave us back then was  ‘This is interesting, but not a top priority,’ or ‘This isn’t my area of responsibility.’ Undeterred, we kept educating the market, sharing stories of how narrative attacks impact brands, and targeting executives, even in the face of physical harm.

Fast forward to early 2025, things rapidly changed with headline after headline in the news and on social, identifying narrative attacks in the following areas:

• Corporate and financial sectors: Campaigns targeting executives or financial instability can result in sharp market reactions, stock manipulation, and even bank runs
• Consumer Brands: Claims about product or company initiatives can spread rapidly across social media, prompting boycotts, brand cancellations, and labor issues.
• Critical infrastructure: Viral rumors of power grid failures, refinery disruptions, and water contamination can trigger emergency mobilizations and disrupt essential services.
• Geopolitical influence: AI-generated images or videos falsely attributed to global leaders can quickly go viral online, sparking unrest and diplomatic tensions.

These are just a few examples. Over the past year, executive teams and cybersecurity leaders have quickly realized that narrative attacks on the organization are a blind spot: they are unprepared for them, lack visibility into them, and have no way to protect against them. Many teams were trying to manage this through manual reviews, social listening, or threat intelligence. It doesn’t work. Enter the new category of ‘Disinformation Security’ and ‘Narrative Intelligence.’ 

What we have said from the beginning is that executive teams and cybersecurity leaders need to ‘Know The Narratives’ that are targeting their leaders, company and industry, who are the threat actors, influencers and nation states behind it, how fast is it growing and spreading across networks, is it bot influenced, and what cohorts and communities are escalating it to harm. Disinformation Security and Narrative Intelligence enables you to understand exactly that, so you can make informed, actionable strategic decisions before, during, and after a crisis to reduce risk significantly. Now, when we speak to executives and cybersecurity leaders who have become our customers, they tell us, ‘This has become a top priority for our organization,’ and ‘We felt hopeless about this situation until we started working with you.’ Everyone now gets it and is taking action. 

In all my years in tech, I have never seen a meteoric rise of a new category like ‘Disinformation Security and Narrative Intelligence’ mature so quickly as the threat has become very real, very harmful, very fast. We now see Disinformation Security and Narrative Intelligence being built into security postures by global companies and national security organizations at a record pace to fill this gap. We are not the only ones talking about it now, and that’s a good thing. Here are some additional resources you can check out by top analysts and advisory firms to learn more. Gartner requires a subscription to access. 

If you need guidance in learning more about narrative attacks and how to protect against them, we are here to help.

Gartner Research 

• “Fight AI Disinformation — A CISO Playbook for Working with Your CIO and CMO”. https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/7097231
• Tech FutureSight: Without Narrative Intelligence, AI Disinformation Attacks Win. https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/6803834
• Emerging Tech: Leverage Disinformation Security to Mitigate Influence Operations. https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/6197555
• Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Disinformation Security. https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/6928766
• Why CIOs Can’t Ignore the Rising Tide of Deepfake Attacks. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-09-02-why-cios-cannot-ignore-the-rising-tide-of-deepfake-attacks
• Gartner Unveils Top Cybersecurity Predictions Through 2028. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-03-18-gartner-unveils-top-eight-cybersecurity-predictions-for-2024
• Disinformation Security https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/disinformation-security

Forrester Research 

• Threat Intelligence Landscape Report, 2025 https://blackbird.ai/resources/forrester-threat-intelligence-report/
• Top Cybersecurity Threats In 2024 MAY 2 2024. https://www.forrester.com/what-it-means/ep365-top-threats-2024/

The World Economic Forum 

• Announced Misinformation and Disinformation as the #1 Global Risk https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2025.pdf

TAG Cyber Research 

• How Misinformation and Disinformation Is A New Threat Vector https://blackbird.ai/resources/tag-report-how-misinformation-and-disinformation-represent-a-new-threat-vector/
• Why CISOs Must Begin to Focus on Narrative Attacks https://blackbird.ai/resources/tag-report-why-cisos-must-begin-to-focus-on-narrative-attacks/
• Protecting Leaders from Harmful Narratives https://blackbird.ai/resources/tag-report-protecting-leaders/
• Industry Report and Narrative Attacks https://blackbird.ai/resources/2024-tag-cyber-analyst-report-narrative-attacks-by-sector/