The growing availability and sophistication of artificial intelligence tools for generating synthetic media (such as text, audio, images, and video) present both opportunities and significant risks for the field of cybersecurity. While these tools are increasingly employed for ethical, creative, and educational purposes, their misuse can facilitate the spread of disinformation, the creation of highly convincing deepfakes, and the manipulation of individuals through social engineering. A critical issue that emerges is the public’s limited ability to distinguish AI-generated content from authentic information, particularly among users with lower levels of digital literacy. This article provides a structured overview and comparative evaluation of several state-of-the-art generative AI tools, including those used for text, image, video, and voice synthesis. It also presents the results of a user-based survey aimed at measuring the effectiveness of content recognition. The findings demonstrate a substantial disparity in detection accuracy between demographic groups, notably between younger and older respondents and between digitally proficient and less experienced users. These results underscore the urgent need to incorporate synthetic content awareness, media literacy, and critical thinking into cybersecurity education. The paper argues that without targeted educational interventions, the effectiveness of cybersecurity training may be undermined by the inability of learners to identify and critically assess AI-based threats in real-world digital environments.

Keywords: Generative Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, disinformation and deepfakes, digital literacy in education.