Are you able to consider your ears? More and more, the reply isn’t any. Right here’s what’s at stake for your enterprise, and methods to beat the deepfakers.
23 Feb 2026
•
,
4 min. learn
There was a time after we might consider the whole lot we noticed and heard. Sadly, these days are most likely lengthy gone. Generative AI (GenAI) has democratized the creation of deepfake audio and video, to the purpose the place producing a fabricated clip is as straightforward as pushing a button or two. That is unhealthy information for everybody, together with companies.
Deepfakes are serving to scammers bypass Know Your Buyer and account authentication checks. They’ll even allow malicious state actors to masquerade as job candidates. However arguably the most important risk they pose is monetary/wire switch fraud and the hijacking of government accounts.
Organizations underestimate the deepfake risk at their peril. The British authorities claims that as many as eight million artificial clips have been shared final 12 months, up from simply 500,000 in 2023. The actual determine could also be far increased.
How assaults work
As an experiment by ESET International Safety Advisor Jake Moore has additionally proven, it’s by no means been simpler to launch a deepfake audio assault on your enterprise. All it requires is a brief clip of the sufferer to be impersonated. GenAI will do the remaining. Right here’s how an assault would possibly proceed:
- An attacker selects the particular person they’re going to impersonate. It is likely to be a CEO, a CFO or perhaps a provider.
- They discover an audio pattern on-line – which is kind of straightforward for high-profile executives who recurrently communicate in public. It would come from a social media account, an earnings name, a video/TV interview or any variety of different sources. A couple of seconds of footage needs to be sufficient.
- They choose the particular person to name. This would possibly require some desk analysis – normally scouring LinkedIn for IT helpdesk employees, or finance group members.
- They may name the person direct, or ship an e mail prematurely – for instance, a CEO requesting an pressing cash switch, a password/multi-factor authentication (MFA) reset request, or a provider demanding fee for an overdue bill.
- They name the pre-selected goal, utilizing GenAI-generated deepfake audio to impersonate the CEO/provider. Relying on the instrument, they might follow pre-scripted speech, or use a extra subtle “speech-to-speech” methodology the place the attacker’s voice is translated in close to actual time to that of their sufferer.
Listening to is believing
This kind of assault is getting cheaper, simpler and extra convincing. Some instruments are even capable of insert background noise, pauses and stammers to make the impersonated voice sound extra plausible. They’re getting significantly better at mimicking the rhythms, inflection and verbal ticks distinctive to each speaker. And when an assault is launched over the cellphone, AI-related glitches could also be more durable for the listener to choose up.
Attackers can also use social engineering techniques, reminiscent of creating strain on the listener to reply urgently to their request, so as to obtain their targets. One other basic is to induce the listener to maintain the request confidential. Add to that the truth that they’re typically impersonating a senior government, and it’s straightforward to see why some victims are duped. Who would need to get into the CEO’s unhealthy books?
That stated, there are methods so that you can spot a faker. Relying on how subtle the GenAI they’re utilizing is, it might be attainable to discern:
- An unnatural rhythm to the speech of the speaker
- An unnaturally flat emotional tone to the voice of the speaker
- Unnatural respiration and even breath-free sentences
- An unusually robotic sound (after they use much less superior tooling)
- Background noise which is both surprisingly absent or too uniform
Time to battle again
The explanation risk actors are placing extra of their time into scams like these is easy: the potential rewards on provide. Cautionary tales are steadily accumulating. One of many largest blunders got here manner again in 2020, when an worker at a agency within the UAE was tricked into believing that their director had phoned to request a $35m fund switch for an M&A deal.
On condition that deepfake know-how has improved considerably within the six years since, it’s price revisiting some key steps you may take to reduce the probabilities of a worst-case state of affairs.
It ought to begin with worker coaching and consciousness. These applications needs to be up to date to incorporate deepfake audio simulations to make sure employees recognized what to anticipate, what’s at stake and methods to act. They need to be taught to identify the tell-tale indicators of social engineering and typical deepfake eventualities reminiscent of those described above. Pink teaming workout routines needs to be run to check how nicely staff are absorbing this info.
Subsequent comes course of. Take into account the next:
- Out-of-band verification of any phone-based requests – i.e., utilizing company messaging accounts to verify with the sender independently
- Two people to log out any giant monetary transfers or adjustments to provider financial institution particulars
- Pre-agreed passphrases or questions which executives should reply to show they’re who they are saying they’re over the cellphone
Know-how may also assist. Detection instruments exist to verify numerous parameters for the presence of an artificial voice. More durable to implement however one other plan of action can be to restrict the alternatives for risk actors to pay money for audio, by limiting executives’ public appearances.
Folks, course of and know-how
Nevertheless, the underside line is that deepfakes are easy and price little to provide. Given the doubtless large sums up for grabs for the fraudsters, it’s unlikely that we’ll see the tip of voice cloning scams any time quickly. A 3-pronged strategy primarily based round individuals, course of and know-how is due to this fact the best choice your group has to mitigate the chance.
As soon as a plan has been authorized, keep in mind to recurrently overview it in order that it stays match for objective, whilst AI innovation advances. The brand new cyber-fraud panorama calls for fixed consideration.
