How Businesses Can Best Protect Themselves from Deepfakes

Whether it’s a deepfake video of actor Tom Cruise discovering gum in a lollipop or President Joe Biden discouraging people from voting via telephone, you’ve likely come across a deepfake video, photo or audio recording.

Over the years they have increased in number and sophistication and are often difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. For businesses, the rise of deepfake technology can be a real nightmare.

“Deepfakes can cause many risks to businesses,” says Siwei Lyu, a University at Buffalo computer scientist and deepfake expert. “A falsified audio recording of a high-level executive commenting on her company’s financial situation could send the stock market awry. A voice call from a CEO requesting an employee to wire transfer funds to an offshore bank account could lead to actual financial losses to the company.”

Most recently, a finance worker at a multinational firm was deceived into shelling out $25 million to criminals that used deepfake technology to impersonate the company’s chief financial officer in a video conference call...