Deepfakes are increasingly popular as a modern technology phenomenon, gaining popularity primarily because the source code and software to create them have become readily available to the public.
At the same time, recent data indicates general awareness around deepfakes continues to increase, especially as high-profile figures like Mark Zuckerberg are mimicked through the technology. However, while deepfakes are not so new anymore, questions remain around the practical applications of using a deepfake as an attack vector, how easy it is to perform this kind of attack, and what they mean for our security.
How Deepfakes Are Used
Deepfakes are artificial audio, video, or image creations that use known, valid data and artificial intelligence to produce a synthetic output. In the context of cybersecurity, deepfakes are categorized as social engineering attacks that can be used to breach an organization’s systems and compromise internal data.
A common use case for deepfakes is impersonating someone to steal their identity. Audio deepfakes, specifically, have been used to gain access to personally identifiable information by impersonating the real individual. We see this use case…
