A low-tech solution from the past may be your best defense against AI deepfakes
AI-enabled identity theft is getting too sophisticated to have predictable tells anymore, so experts recommend answering with a seemingly old-fashioned approach.
In January 2024, an employee at Arup, a professional services firm, unknowingly joined a video call with an AI-generated clone of the company's CFO. This call resulted in 15 wire transfers totaling around $25 million to third-party accounts. Every participant on the other end of the call was an AI clone created from public appearances and earnings calls of Arup executives.
Deepak Gupta, technical CEO at GrackerAI, stated, "Seeing and hearing someone is no longer proof they are real." He emphasized that traditional methods of identity verification, such as recognizing someone's face and voice, are now unreliable. The era of relying on visual cues to authenticate individuals has become obsolete due to the rapid advancement of deepfake technology.
Experts like James Scobey, CTO at B2B cybersecurity firm S2i2, agree that low-tech security protocols offer better defenses in the face of sophisticated AI attacks. They recommend hardware-based security keys or verbal passphrases as effective security measures, particularly in light of the growing prevalence of AI-enabled threats.
These traditional methods, though simple, provide a single controlled point of entry that proves more effective in combating advanced AI threats compared to more complex automated detection protocols.
Written by urgent.news from ZDNet's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
