Deepfakes: The New Face of Fraud

Stu Sjouwerman | Dec 11, 2023

Deepfakes New Face of FraudSecurity analysts at identity vendor Sumsub are seeing a massive rise in the use of deepfake fraud in their Identity Fraud Report 2023. And one country may be to blame.

While Sumsub’s focus is more around all forms of identity security, it's witnessing a significant increase in deepfakes, as deepfakes are a form of identity fraud.

According to Sumsub, the top three fraud trends identified were:

  • deepfake usage
  • complex fraud patterns (e.g., crypto scams using mules)
  • advanced forgeries (e.g., fake IDs)

The approximate overall growth rate worldwide for the use of deepfakes is 10x. We’ve seen deepfakes used to mimic members of the C-suite to authorize bank transfers. And we’re seeing advances in deepfake technology thanks to AI. Sumsub themselves even reference a journalist who was able to access his own account using a deepfake of himself.

According to Sumsub, the advancements in AI technology specifically within the U.S. are to blame:

"US advancements in artificial intelligence and digital manipulation technology are leading to a rise in fraud involving fake videos and images. The widespread availability of high-quality media content and the popularity of social media platforms in the US contribute to the propagation of deepfake fraud."

With massive growth numbers in the U.S. and Canada, it makes sense that organizations in those countries (and, realistically, globally, as the report covers every Geo) teach their users through new-school security awareness training how to spot deepfakes and how to avoid being a victim through out-of-band verification of the person calling/leaving a voicemail/etc.

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