Cybercriminals don’t wait for the dust to settle. As conflict escalates across the Middle East, a parallel threat has emerged targeting ordinary people through their inboxes and social media feeds.

On 4 March, the UAE Ministry of Interior warned the public about fraudulent emails impersonating government emergency services, falsely claiming that residents must complete a mandatory registration form to receive state support or insurance coverage. The emails bore hallmarks of official government communications, making them convincingly deceptive. They are designed to exploit fear, urgency, and the instinct to comply with perceived authority. These messages are already circulating.

Alongside financial scams, verified fact-checkers have identified AI-generated and mislabelled footage circulating online as supposed evidence of attacks in the UAE. This includes video from Bahrain that was picked up by international media outlets and incorrectly broadcast as a Dubai drone strike. Fabricated videos of the Burj Khalifa collapsing, AI-generated missile strike imagery, and decade-old footage repackaged as current events have also circulated widely. In another example, a supposed “before and after” satellite image of Dubai showing smoke rising over the city was mislabelled — the image was actually from Sharjah, the neighbouring emirate. In many cases, the content spread faster than the corrections. Dubai Police have warned that sharing unverified information can carry criminal penalties under UAE law, including fines of no less than AED 200,000. Despite these warnings, the flow of misleading content has not slowed.

KnowBe4 warns patterns observed during previous conflicts and crises, including the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, the public should also expect charity and donation scams exploiting humanitarian concern, phishing emails disguised as embassy or government alerts, and deepfake imagery engineered to provoke fear or spread disinformation.

Dr. Martin Kraemer, CISO Advisor at KnowBe4 said, “Crises are the most reliable recruitment tool bad actors have. When people are frightened and searching for information, they are not necessarily looking for the truth. They are looking for confirmation of what they already fear. That is exactly what scammers and disinformation actors exploit. What we are seeing right now, fake government emergency emails, mislabelled footage, AI-generated imagery, is not random. It is targeted, and it is designed to exploit the gap between what people feel and what they know. The antidote is not panic. It is discipline: pause, question the source, and go directly to official channels before acting on anything. That’s precisely how governments and organizations are educating people to react in stressful situations.”

What the Public Can Do Right Now

KnowBe4 urges residents, travellers, and anyone following events in the region to apply the following principles:

• Treat urgency as a warning sign. Any message that pressures you to act quickly, register now, donate immediately, confirm your details before midnight, is likely designed to stop you thinking clearly.
• Verify before you share. Before forwarding footage or information, check whether it has been verified by a reputable news outlet or official source. Reverse image searches take seconds and can prevent significant harm.
• Go directly to official sources. If you receive communications claiming to be from a government ministry, embassy, or emergency service, navigate directly to their official website rather than clicking any link in the message.
• Question what you see. AI-generated imagery has reached a level of quality where video alone is no longer reliable evidence. Look for verification from multiple credible sources before drawing conclusions.
• Report suspicious communications. In the UAE, suspected scam emails or messages should be reported to the relevant authorities. Do not engage with the sender.