In today’s digital age, the risk of being a victim of deepfakes increases as scammers can use videos and images of their targets to manipulate them for malicious purposes. The creation of deepfakes requires technical knowledge and advanced software, which is why those interested turn to services on the Darknet. Security experts have studied this phenomenon and have found a high demand for deepfake content, exceeding the available supply. Users are looking for people who can create fake videos, even specifically soliciting celebrities or political figures.
On the other hand, a considerable number of analyzed publications were related to cryptocurrencies. This is because some providers offer high-quality deepfakes to create cryptostreams or fake cryptocurrency giveaways, which are popular scams in which cybercriminals collect cryptocurrency by promoting fake giveaways. To create the deepfakes, scammers use celebrity images or mix up old videos to make live broadcasts on social networks, where they display a pre-designed page asking victims to transfer between 2,500 and 1,000,000 XRP1, promising to double any payment sent to them. As a result, victims of these scams can lose between $1,000 and $460,000.
Besides the fact that deepfakes can be used for financial fraud, they can also cause a big problem for privacy. Worryingly, some deepfake creators are offering their services to create fake porn videos, as well as tutorials that include lessons on selecting source material and swapping faces to make a convincing fake. Unfortunately, these videos can be used to victimize and blackmail people, causing serious emotional damage and even financial loss.
“Cybercriminals are increasingly using deepfakes to carry out various scams, such as cryptocurrency fraud, or bypassing biometric security. The fact that there is a high demand for these deepfake creation services also indicates that individuals and groups with malicious intent are willing to pay significant sums of money to acquire these types of videos. As technology continues to improve and become more accessible, it is crucial that businesses and individuals take steps to protect themselves from scams and attacks related to deepfakes.”says Vladislav Tushkanov, Chief Data Scientist at Kaspersky.
Ongoing Darknet Surveillance Provides Valuable Insights into the Deepfake Industry, allowing researchers to discover new tools, services and markets used for their creation and distribution, as well as improving their understanding of the evolving threat landscape. Kaspersky’s Digital Footprint Intelligence service includes this type of monitoring to help its customers stay ahead when it comes to deepfake-related threats.
How to avoid deepfake threats
On World Internet Day on May 17, Kaspersky offers the following recommendations to protect yourself from deepfake-related threats:
- Review the cybersecurity practices implemented in your organization, not only in terms of software, but also in terms of computer skills developed. Use Kaspersky Threat Intelligence to stay ahead of the current threat landscape.
- Train employees to understand what deepfakes are, how they work, and what challenges they can present. Also, carry out continuous awareness and education campaigns to teach them how to detect a deepfake. With Kaspersky Automated Security Awareness Platform, employees are able to keep up with the latest threats and increase digital literacy levels.
- Use good quality news sources. Information illiteracy remains a crucial factor for the proliferation of deepfakes.
- Have good protocols like “trust but verify”. A skeptical attitude toward voice messages and videos won’t guarantee that people will never be fooled, but it can help avoid many of the most common pitfalls.
- Know the main characteristics of deepfake videos to avoid becoming a victim: sudden movements, changes in lighting from one frame to another, changes in skin tone, strange blinking or no blinking at all, lips out of sync with speech , digital artifacts in the image, as well as videos intentionally encoded in low quality and with poor lighting.
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