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How deepfakes attack business and how to combat them

Recently, the FBI announced that more companies have been reporting people applying for jobs using deepfakes. Imposters use video, images, recordings, and stolen identities pretending to be someone else to get a remote IT position. This may sound like a joke, but hiring a deepfake can lead to serious problems when a fake employee gets access to sensitive corporate information and customer data.

This may pose a threat to a company’s data security, and in the event of a breach, the company likely won’t have a chance to bring the fraudster to justice.

The case mentioned above is not the only way scammers use deepfakes to take advantage of a business. As technology evolves, adversaries can use this new method to cheat biometric tests used by banks and cryptocurrency exchanges to verify users’ identities for money laundering. According to the Sensity report, 9 of the top 10 Know Your Customer (KYC) vendors were highly vulnerable to deepfake attacks.

Deepfakes are also used for spear, or targeted, phishing. Adversaries can mimic a company’s executives to gain a person’s trust and trick them into turning over sensitive data, money or access to the organisation’s infrastructure. In one case, criminals managed to get $35 million by forging the voice of a company’s director.

“Understanding the danger is half the battle. Educate your employees and let them know about the new fraudulent methods. A high-quality deepfake requires a lot of expertise and effort, while fakes used for scams or synchronous interaction during an interview would probably be low-quality,” says Vladislav Tushkanov, lead data scientist at Kaspersky.

“Among signs of a deepfake, there are unnatural lip movements, poorly rendered hair, mismatched face shapes, little to no blinking, skin colour mismatches, and errors in the rendering of clothes, or a hand passing over the face. However, an adversary may intentionally lower the video quality to hide these artefacts. To minimise the chance of hiring a fake employee, break job interviews into several stages involving not only HR managers, but also people who will be working with a new employee. This will increase the chances of spotting anything unusual.”

Technologies are also good helpers in combating deepfakes. A reliable cybersecurity solution will ensure support if a high-quality deepfake convinces an employee to download malicious files or programs, or to visit any suspicious links or phishing websites. An anti-fraud solution that provides user behavioural analysis and financial transaction monitoring may be a good option for companies using KYC, providing an additional layer of protection.

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