Dark news from dark web: deepfakers are getting their act together

The second wave of concern about deepfakes is building. The next crest is being propelled by entrepreneurial zeal, according to a vendor report.

Fascination with simple, adolescent-minded face-swapped porn is turning to fraudulent video and audio attacks to defeat corporate and government security strategies, including biometric authentication, as well as to blackmail and extortion.

A few actual crimes involving deepfake fraud attacks have been reported before, but, according to Recorded Future, which sells private intelligence relevant to enterprise security, things are getting organized.

Criminal deepfake activity is developing into an economic niche, writes Recorded Future in its report.

Dark web forum participants today are discussing deepfake best practices, creation services, methods, lessons and news of evolving tactics and technology.

One deepfake threat actor, identified in the report as skidhackz, offered services on Hack Forums for $20 per minute of fraudulent video last June.

If that fee sounds low, so is the fidelity of an example of their work, a clip putting actress Margot Robbie’s face on another woman’s head. The report shows before and after frames that are plainly unconvincing.

That said, recent public technology demonstrations indicate a high degree of realism is available.

That expertise appears to be finding buyers. Recorded Future’s report states that one year ago, a threat actor known as Buffer posted their willingness to pay $16,000 for deepfake services including video and photo editing.

And it appears that the next swell of deepfake news will come out of the gate as an international trend. The report warns that English- and Russian-language forums dominate discussions and code-sharing, but other notable venues are held in Turkish, Chinese and Spanish.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  cybersecurity  |  deepfakes  |  digital identity  |  fraud prevention