AI-generated voice deepfakes present an urgent threat to organizations, according to researchers at Pindrop.
The researchers warn that speech generation tools can create realistic-sounding cloned voices in near real-time, allowing attackers to hold live conversations with victims while imitating someone the victim knows.
Additionally, these tools can now convincingly imitate human emotions, making social engineering attacks even more persuasive.
“Advances in synthetic speech have enabled [text-to-speech] voices to convey emotions like joy, anger, empathy, and sadness,” the researchers write. “AI models can now learn and imitate emotional tones from human speech, making these synthetic voices even more convincing.”
These tools are readily available for anyone to use, allowing even unskilled attackers to launch sophisticated social engineering attacks.
“Fraudsters are turning to voice modulation, manipulating their pitch, cadence, tone, and volume to imitate others or confuse agents,” the researchers write. “With easy access to voice-changing apps on mobile platforms, it’s now simpler to mask their identity.
For instance, a major U.S. retailer reported a surge in attackers posing as virtual legal assistants requesting account closures on behalf of customers. The rise of open-source AI platforms has dramatically lowered the barrier to creating realistic deepfakes.
In 2024 alone, Hugging Face hosted more than 2,400 TTS models and over 1,800 text-to-audio models. While these tools serve legitimate developer use cases, they’re also readily accessible to fraudsters.”
The researchers note, “Strengthening authentication protocols, implementing real-time risk analysis, and continuously training contact center representatives to recognize evolving fraud tactics remain critical defenses against these increasingly skilled adversaries.”
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Pindrop has the story.
